Sound of Surviving Blog

Today, my bible journaling verses were Galatians 4:22-26, verses that talk about the fruit of the Spirit, and how if we are in Christ, we are supposed to crucify our old ways, and live in the Spirit of God. I’ve read these verses before, but Galatians 5:25-26 really struck me today. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.”

As someone with a chronic illness, I often long to be able to be like, or do what others who don’t have a chronic illness do. I’ve never before thought that this was an ungodly thing. I mean, I’ve always thought, “If they get that kind of happiness, why shouldn’t I?” I’ve never seen it as a bad thing; I’ve just always assumed that it was natural to feel that way, to want to be like everyone else, to want to do what they’re doing. Today, though, reading this verse, it hit me.

That even though I don’t feel malice or inwardly jealous of what others without my condition have (a family or house of their own, being able to go out with friends, energy, the ability to travel, etc.), the longing I have for what they have is still envy. We are called to be content with what we have. Like Paul, in Philippians 4:11, we are called to be content in whatever situation we are in. Not that that’s easy, but if we remember that we have God, who never leaves us or forsakes us, who holds a future for us far better than anything we can ever dream of, we can learn to be content in any circumstances, to be satisfied, even when we have very little; to know that our lives are not lesser than, just because they don’t look like someone else’s.

These verses have reminded me, that just because my life doesn’t look like everyone else’s, and that just because I don’t have what I think I should have right now, it doesn’t mean that God’s plan is less for me, or that I’ll never get to experience those things, it just means that it isn’t my time yet. And it may never be. But I am getting to learn a lesson most people never do. I am learning to be content with little, because the God who holds the whole universe on his fingertips walks beside me.