I was wrong

This past week was tough.  I was hormonal while a couple of challenging things came up.  On in our home life and one in my work.  It did not go well together.  I spent most of the week feeling angry, stressed and tired.  I wanted to release all the negativity, pass it to God and trust Him with my life.  I tried, I really, really tried.  But I just could not look past the circumstances of my life long enough to see God holding out his hands and place my troubles in them.

Until I finally did.

Sometimes we just like our anger too much to let go.  But eventually my anger wore me out and I was ready to be done.  I was tired of hearing myself complain.  I started 3 posts explaining the injustices that had befallen me but couldn't come to any conclusions beyond being angry and bitter.  And who wants to read about that?

In both incidences I had technically done something wrong.  If we must split hairs I was wrong.  Fine.  There.  Now you know.  BUT...

I could comprehensively explain to you why my wrong behavior is totally justified and why the people who turned me in are petty, vindictive, bored women whose lives have nothing to offer and so have made it their life mission to torment me.  When I was done you would totally be on my side.  Truly both offenses are so petty I wouldn't even need to give you my speech.  But in the end I would still be wrong and all I would have really accomplished would be to draw you into my sin.

Our pastor is doing a sermon series on Daniel right now.  This past week was the classic Lion's Den story.  What I got caught on was what led to the lion's den.  Daniel's jealous co-workers sought to find fault with him so they could report to his supervisor, King Darius, but they couldn't find anything to report.  Nothing.

Daniel had been taken captive as a boy and been forced to live and work in a foreign land away from family his entire life.  Talk about home to work transition!  Yet he was so faithful and worked so hard he was promoted to second in command.  And when his fellow co-workers sought to bring him down they found nothing to accuse him of.  Nothing.  No stolen pens, no long lunches, no printing in color when the cheaper black and white would suffice, no checking facebook on the clock, no mistakes on reports, no forgotten assignments.  They found nothing.  And they realized it was all because of his God.  They knew the only way to get him to break a rule was to make a law that went against his God.

" 4 At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. 5 Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.” Daniel 6:4-5


Now that is the kind of employee I want to be, the kind of citizen I want to be.  An exemplary employee who no one can find fault, an exemplary neighbor, friend, sister, daughter, wife, mother.  It might not keep me from accusations, it certainly didn't protect Daniel, but he walked into the lion's den confident he had done no wrong before God and whether he was rescued or died he was at peace.

In the end I know a lot of my anger stemmed from getting called out on something  knew was wrong but I had justified in my mind.  It was and is hard to admit you are wrong when people calling you out feel like enemies.  But I am accountable to God and sometimes he uses people I don't like very much to do a work in my life.  So I am turning my anger over to God and learning to humbly accept the lessons before me.

I go forward not with a desire to do better and please man but with a desire to please God and to bring glory to Him in everything I do.

"For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Gal 1:10