Lost in the Mire of the Dire

“Why am I so sad? Why am I so upset? I should put my hope in God and keep praising Him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:5

He pulled into the garage and scraped his vehicle on the garbage can leaving a scratch on the side of the vehicle.  She told me that if she surrenders her life to God something bad will happen because when she gives up control bad things always happen.  He messed up again and wondered why he could not do everything right.  She tried to take care of all the details but forgot something which would have made the day so much better.  She made the chili and when she put the chili powder in, too much came out.  How do you make it less spicy?  Oh, the bad things that keep happening.  Getting lost in the mire of bad.

Oh, I could go on and on with examples of the bad things that happen in daily life.  Usually not life altering circumstances every time.  Just mess ups and frustrating actions that influence the attitude toward the day.  It is distressing to experience the consequences of the lack of thought and focus that lead to less than perfect days.  We mess up. We make mistakes.  We do things wrong.  Life does not turn out like we had hoped and planned.  Then we focus on all that went wrong and get upset at ourselves for not paying closer attention or not being smart enough to prevent the problem or bad outcome.

We get stuck in the mire – the distress or even embarrassment of what we did or did not do.  We have a difficult time letting go of our mistakes or situations we did not handle well.  We may ask God to forgive us and help us to let it go.  We accept God’s grace and forgiveness, but we do not forgive ourselves for not being perfect.  We develop a view of not being good enough even for God.  We always mess up and wonder why God would even love us?

Other times we focus on the bad and pile up the negative incidents and events.  Soon all we see is the mire of constant distress.  We ask, “Why do bad things keep happening to me?  When will I get a break?”  Stop putting it all together and ruining the entire day.  When something happens that irritates and frustrates or was just bad, tell yourself that was just one incident.  Oh, well, it happened.  I cannot change it, but it does not have to destroy my mood for the day.  Release it to God.

When all we see are the problems, hurts, sadness, and negativity of life, we get pulled into the mire. We are stuck in a place that seems hopeless and impossible to navigate.  We are cast down without someone or something to pull us out of the mud that keeps us going in circles and making no progress.

Begin looking up and changing your focus.  Yes, we mess up.  Make mistakes.  People hurt us and accuse us of wrong.  We are judged unfairly.  We do things without thinking them through and live out the consequences.

Life changes.  Circumstances happen that are out of our control.  Through my journey, I have begun to accept that life happens and how I handle it is up to me.  I can remain stuck in the pain and anger.  Or I can talk with God and get out my anger, frustration, and hurt and release it.  I am learning to wait in God’s presence.  To be still.  Breathe in the Holy Spirit and breathe out my feelings.  To be calm and focus on what is good and count my blessings.

No easy task to change a pattern of life but it sure is worth it.  Situations and people are no longer in control of my life.  Sure it creeps in at times, but then I surrender to God again and again.  I focus on the beauty of God’s creation, and I look up more.  I see God’s angel wings in the clouds. I see the beauty of the blue sky, the trees, and feel the refreshing breeze.  I slow down instead of getting caught up in the things that have no eternal value.  The mire of life is not dire.  Not urgent, awful or terrible.  Not all of it anyway.

Life is different.  Life is good.  Life is living in God’s presence.