The Road to Acceptance
By Meg Bucher
“Get all the advice and instruction you can, so you will be wise the rest of your life.” - Proverbs 19:20 NLT
Blindsided. If only I would have been willing to receive wise wisdom and intel into my situation, maybe the hurt would not have felt like I’d been smacked unexpectedly across the face. When we pray to God for wisdom in crisis, it’s really tempting to ask Him to bless the way we want it to turn out. God loves us perfectly, but His good plan for our lives doesn’t always line up with the way we wish and plan for things to go. “Change is the only constant in life,” Pamela S. Willsey LICSW, BCD, PCC, wrote for Psychology Today, “and yet most of us are never taught the tools that will enable us to manage all of the changes we experience.”
Acceptance is the act of taking or receiving something offered. Synonyms of acceptance include receiving, recognition, acquiring, acknowledgment, permission, obtaining, gaining, compliance, and admission. “Acceptance is an active process,” Pamela S. Willsey continued to explain in her article for Psychology Today, “It doesn’t mean that you can’t work on changing things and that what you’re accepting will be that way forever. But struggling against reality- resisting and rejecting it- we create unnecessary additional suffering and pain.”
Denial is a tempting alternative to painful realities, but in choosing to ignore reality we stunt our growth. Everything we endure on this earth when we place our faith in God is meant to bring about good in our lives. God is never aloof to our circumstances. He loves us perfectly, compassionately, mercifully, defensively, and wholly. He is faithful, jealous for us, and almighty. His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways, but His love for us is unquestionable and unchanging. When reality is hard to accept, we can lean on Him for the strength we need to keep moving forward instead of getting stuck.
Intersecting Faith and Life:
“Get all the advice and instruction you can, so you will be wise the rest of your life.” Proverbs 19:20 NLT
Now raising two daughters, my desire is to share every note of wisdom I have accumulated so they don’t have to stumble and suffer through the lessons I did. “The goal of becoming ‘wise’ might be defined as living with the end in view;” The NIV Application Commentary explains, “If the phrase points to the end of life, then wisdom is a lifelong project, not a job order that one fulfills and moves on.”
Knowing my daughters might resist wisdom just because it’s coming from me, I pray they are surrounded by wise voices. Sometimes, I go before them and ask others to encourage them in places I know they need it, but are resistant to hear it directly from me. In a much grander way, the Father goes before us, layering comfort and encouragement into our lives when we need it the most.
The Word of God is life-giving. The Holy Spirit in us allows us to connect with and come into the presence of God through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus in a personal way, everyday. “Given the world, the flesh and the devil are rarely silent,” George Sinclair explains, “I need to be silent before God’s word written every day.”
Jesus is a faithful friend. He walks through reality with us.
Further Reading:
Additional Resources
NIV Application Commentary. Copyright © 2003 by Paul E. Koptak.
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Rasica
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