I’ve been trying hard lately to ask myself what God is trying to teach me – what is He speaking to me, if I take the time to listen.  I’m not very good at just knowing the answer to that.  It isn’t that He’s absent from my life…although it can be tempting to think that when an answer doesn’t immediately come to mind…but, more so, it’s that life and worries and frustrations all sort of mingle together with the encouragement and conviction and truth that He speaks to me throughout the day.  I tend to lose God in the shuffle.  I fail to make His words and promptings my primary focus, which means “everything else” in my life creeps into that place in my heart that needs to be reserved for God alone.  Hence, the attempt to bring His workings into more of a place of prominence in my heart and mind.

And, lately, what He is teaching me is that He is always good.  This is something I need to learn because I have a habit of assigning fault to God when someone or something else disappoints me.  When humanity shows itself to be less than perfect (which, somehow, still manages to take me by surprise) it doesn’t mean that God’s heart toward me has changed, or that stresses in my life are God’s way of showing His disapproval of me.

It’s been a slow realization process, though.  It’s been a recognition that even when I come to God with the same problems and questions, over and over and over again, His response to me is always kind, always patient, always loving.  Despite how I may feel when life disappoints me, God’s word to me is ever one of unwavering faithfulness.  While I often don’t understand the “why” behind struggles in life, He is making it clear to me that His heart for me is always entirely pure and good.  I really need to remember that.