Your Life on The Shelf
Do you feel like your life is on the shelf? Do you feel like you are not living the life you were designed to live? Do you feel like a big question mark, sitting on the sidelines of life?
If you have this awareness, it is actually a good thing. Somehow, you are in the wilderness, in some aspect of your life. The wilderness is a common motif in the Bible.
Life on the shelf is where you suffer the loss of something. You lose your job, you lose relationships, or you lose your place. You go from active to in active.
Now what? On the shelf, things shift from outer to inner. Rather that doing things going outward, God shifts you to intensive inner work.
When we get put on the shelf, there is a dying that occurs, so that God can form Christ's life in you. God teaches us to live in his love and be accepted by him, and not live for the applause of people. A purging happens that can not happen when we are constantly engaged in activities with people.
When we go through a stripping where things are taken away that gave us esteem, it is time to embrace God and find our whole worth in him. We get to and have to decide how we will spend our time on the shelf. Will we exercise faith and press into God, even if God seems distant or absent; or will we misbehave?
The choice is ours, bitter or better. Waiting on God, when there seems to be no tangible reward, because the reward is not immediate, is the test we face. If we lean into the experience that God puts before us and learn what lessons he is wanting us to learn, then we will be able to say that we were refined and when we come out on the other side, the gold was left.
The time on the shelf is a time to grow in loving God. It is a time to discover God's relationship with you: who God wants to be to you and who you are to him. When we first get put on the shelf, we might view it as punishment or disfavor or failure. Actually, it is a blessing.
Consider this song:
Ain't Misbehavin'
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| Photo: pixabay |
Life on the shelf is where you suffer the loss of something. You lose your job, you lose relationships, or you lose your place. You go from active to in active.
Now what? On the shelf, things shift from outer to inner. Rather that doing things going outward, God shifts you to intensive inner work.
When we get put on the shelf, there is a dying that occurs, so that God can form Christ's life in you. God teaches us to live in his love and be accepted by him, and not live for the applause of people. A purging happens that can not happen when we are constantly engaged in activities with people.
When we go through a stripping where things are taken away that gave us esteem, it is time to embrace God and find our whole worth in him. We get to and have to decide how we will spend our time on the shelf. Will we exercise faith and press into God, even if God seems distant or absent; or will we misbehave?
The choice is ours, bitter or better. Waiting on God, when there seems to be no tangible reward, because the reward is not immediate, is the test we face. If we lean into the experience that God puts before us and learn what lessons he is wanting us to learn, then we will be able to say that we were refined and when we come out on the other side, the gold was left.
The time on the shelf is a time to grow in loving God. It is a time to discover God's relationship with you: who God wants to be to you and who you are to him. When we first get put on the shelf, we might view it as punishment or disfavor or failure. Actually, it is a blessing.
Consider this song:
Ain't Misbehavin'
No one to talk with
All by myself
No one to walk with
But I'm happy on the shelf
Ain't misbehavin'
I'm savin' my love for you
I know for certain
The one I love
I'm through with flirtin'
It's just you I'm thinkin' of
Ain't misbehavin'
I'm savin' my love for you
Like Jack Horner
In the corner
Don't go nowhere
What do I care?
Your kisses are worth waitin' for
Believe me
I don't stay out late
Don't care to go
I'm home about eight
Just me and my radio
Ain't misbehavin'
I'm savin' my love for you
Like Jack Horner
In the corner
Don't go nowhere
What do I care?
Your kisses are worth waitin' for
Believe me
I don't stay out late
Don't care to go
I'm home about eight
Just me and my radio
Ain't misbehavin'
I'm savin' my love for you
Writer/s: RAZAF, ANDY / BROOKS, HARRY / WALLER, FATS
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