I lost fourteen pounds between Memorial Day and the beginning of August. From 176 to 162. When I got to 166 I felt skinny – because I compared it to how I felt at 176,
For the last few weeks I’ve stopped losing and even gained back a pound or two. I don’t feel skinny anymore, even though my old shorts still won’t stay up. Since I’ve stopped losing, I’ve lost the sense of progress. I think it was the sense of progress that made me feel skinny as much as the actual weight. No progress? Then no satisfaction.
But I’ve still done what I’ve done! Lost fourteen pounds, even if one came back. Doesn’t that count for something? No. You can always do better. And you don’t get no more satisfaction til you do the better.
Maybe you don’t hear that voice. I hear it all the time, but it whispers, as if it wants me to hear it but doesn’t want me to notice I’m hearing it. Where does that voice come from?
Dad.
That’s what I realized this morning while walking Delly. I’m a kid and there are some good grades, but why isn’t this one better? Ditto for baseball, and art, and chores. No celebration of any achievement, only a new target. He wasn’t mean and it wasn’t a big deal. It was normal and I learned this is just the way it is: Undone things are heavy, but once accomplished are light. This, of course is not true; whatever they weigh, it’s the same, done or undone.
You hear a voice too, telling you something that’s not true. The voice comes from somewhere back there, or now, someone you believed without thinking, and still believe.
It’s OK. It’s normal. This all happens with the Lord’s permission. He lets everything get sick, he lets lies be told, so that he can be the cure and the truth.
It’s not good for me to trust in something untrustworthy. So God sets up a system to steer me to trust him. Without the sick and the lie, I wouldn’t appreciate the cure and the truth.
If the whole world were light, light would be normal. I would never appreciate light. I would never trust light. What else is there? Throw in dark and I’m awakened to light.
If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin – Romans 7.7
