bubble gum machine God

Do you ever feel like we associate God to a bubble gum machine?

Let me explain...

Lately, I have been realizing that I use God the same way I use a bubble gum machine. Because with a bubble gum machine, you simply put a penny in and out pops the desired result.

I have been feeling like I have dwindled my relationship with my Jesus down to merely a laundry list of requests:

• find my parents a house
• bless my marriage
• find me a ministry position
• bring avalynne in to this world safely
• grant me peace through this troubled time

and on and on the list of requests goes...

but how often do I stop to realize that this God of the universe with whom I am in relation yearns to talk to me, too?

Since my post on suffering life has surely gotten more turbulent.

But I have realized something through it all...

i opened my devotional for the first time in months...

Ever since I was a little girl, I felt like devotions or quiet time was a score sheet between God and me. Like if I did my devotions for the day, God patted me on the head and gave me a treat but if I missed a day, he slapped my wrist. That mindset has carried with me in to adulthood and turned in to a legalism that, at times, can hold me hostage. Sure I have experienced some freedom from this mindset, but it seems like a daily battle.

Well, today I opened my Streams in the Desert devotional, which is particularly aimed toward those going through seasons of despair and drought and here is what it said: 

John 18:11 "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" 

...

Having your brightest aspirations as a young person forever crushed; bearing burdens daily that are always difficult and never seeing relief; finding yourself worn down by poverty while simply desiring to do good for others and provide a comfortable living for those you love; being shackled by incurable physical disability; being completely alone, separated from all those you love, to face the trauma of life alone, yet in all these, still being able to say through such a difficult school of disciple, "shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" - this is faith at its highest, and spiritual success at its crowning point.

...

If you have surrendered yourself to Christ, your present circumstances that seem to be pressing so hard against you are the perfect tool in the Father's hand to chisel you into shape for eternity. So trust Him and never push away the instrument He is using, or you will miss the result of His work in your life.

The school of suffering graduates exceptional scholars. 

This is exactly what I needed to read today. 

Because today is a day when I feel life crashing down on me. A day when I feel like putting my penny in to the bubble gum machine to ask God if he will please ________________. But I want to graduate from this school of suffering. I want to walk through this season with a John 18:11 outlook. Not for a cookie or a prize when all is said and done but so I may graduate this school, and enroll in the next...