eternal hope and patient endurance

1. Be gentle

2. Don't be anxious

3. Present requests thankfully in prayer

4. Experience peace and a guarded minded

These are what I've claimed as my steps to peace. Sometimes 'life' interrupts your plans-not always in a bad way, but life has a way of catching up to you... and I think what I call 'life' is really a time of God taking what I've made into my own plans and merging that back into realignment with His.

Yesterday I had one of these 'life catching up' days. Today, after going over and over my four steps from Philippians 4:5-7 something new stood out. In verse 5 when Paul commands us to make our 'gentleness known to all' his reasoning is because 'the Lord is near'.

If Paul would have said 'be gentle because life is meeting your expectations now' over half of us would have a good reason to not be gentle. Yet, if our hope, joy, compassion, gentleness, and emotions were contingent on the hope of That Day, surely that is an unwavering hope.

So today, I must be fixed on eternity. The next plans (phase of life) that I have outlined for myself cannot be be my goal. I must make sure that these plans line up with God's final plan.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God 'has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end'.

This stage in life may not make sense to me- nevertheless what is required of me is a 'patient endurance and faithfulness' (Revelation 13:10). It's a form of the saying: 'when you can't trace His hand- trust His heart'.

When day-to-day circumstances confuse me, by not following the plan that I expected, I must realign my heart once again to eternity- the unfathomable eternity placed in my heart.

It is a difficult task because I would like to make my own plans and ideas, and to prepare, expecting the next phase to happen. Yet, every good and perfect gift I have received comes from a Father who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17).

I am, as His child, promised eternity. Holding on to the hope of That Day, I will not be moved away from gentleness and the patient endurance that is required of me when my temporary plans seem to have fallen through. The hope of eternity is much to great for that!