October 8 Update:

Someone might ask how it is possible that we have met every Tuesday since March, and we have only read the book of Ruth and Proverbs through chapter 25, but that someone has probably never been to Ruth and Naomi’s house.

Tonight we read Proverbs chapter 25 from verse 19 through the end of the chapter.

Two weeks ago I had a big conversation with the LORD, where He let me know that wondering why things are happening in different people’s lives is unproductive and unfruitful.

I was having many unfruitful and unproductive musings in my own mind about friends and family who are suffering in their physical bodies, with their finances, and in relationships. I was taking all the data points in my mind and trying to reason through their situations. 

The LORD reminded me that like it says in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, I should aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind my own business, and to work with my hands so that I can stand rightly before men and I will lack nothing.

Mind my own business.

Just one week later, I spent a lot of time thinking about people in my life who lack spiritual insight and reason through situations using their carnal mind living in fear rather than faith.  While pondering situations in the lives of others, I was also distracted by my own struggle with recurrent sinus infections and Friday night I ended up at the ER with what they diagnosed as a “sinus migraine.”

Distracted by my own physical struggles and thoughts of friends and family and their struggles, again, the LORD corrected me. “Stop looking around at natural circumstances and get your eyes on Me.”

Tonight during Bible study my mind couldn’t stop thinking about that conversation so we paused to revisit it. Driving home from Bible study, one of the lines from the letter played on a loop:

"The sooner a person comes into agreement with the reality that the natural world you are living in is not their final destination, the sooner that person can live unhindered by the natural realities of the world.

"Notice I said, "Can live unhindered by the natural realities of that world, not be unaffected by."  You are all affected by natural realities, no matter how aware you are of spiritual realities.  No one living in the world is exempt from the natural realities of that world."

So my question is, "What does it mean to be affected by the natural realities of the world, but to be unhindered?"

The LORD told me that we would not be unaffected.  On the way home, Chyla and I looked up the words "unaffected" and "unhindered."

Unaffected = not changed, influenced, or harmed by an event

Unhindered = moving, happening, or continuing without any obstacles, blocks, or delays getting in the way.  

So what the LORD said to me is essentially that although we will be affected (changed, influenced, or even harmed by an event), we can be unhindered....we can move through that even without any obstacles, blocks, or delays getting in the way.   This reminds me of the letter "The Bubble" about life in Christ.  In the bubble you can get through obstacles and walls that stand in everyone else's way.  

I've spent a couple days pondering this idea now and asking, "What would it look like to be unhindered by life situations, even if we are affected by them?"

The first thought was, "What would it look like to go through a cancer diagnosis, affected but unhindered?"  Cancer ravishes bodies.  It would be impossible to not be affected by cancer when it comes, but to be unhindered by it, spiritually would be that your faith in a good God, in the healing power of Jesus, and His desire for healing and wholeness to be unswayed by facing the physical reality of cancer. 

It's easy to speculate what affected but unhindered would look like in something as big and vague as a diagnosis we have never faced before, but what would it look like for me, Donna, to go through the past two months with bronchitis, sinus infections, or whatever else has been affecting my body unhindered?  

I have missed days of work, felt exhausted, and been physically slowed down by these symptoms.  Have I been hindered?

I have been physically affected.  Friday I even went to the ER because apparently I don't know what a migraine feels like and I thought it could potentially be a stroke.  

Spiritually, what was going on in the midst of it all?  I would like to say that I've been unhindered, but the truth is, I spent a lot of time asking God, "Have I missed it somewhere?  Did I open the door to the enemy allowing him to bring this on me with my permission through an area of sin in my life?"  As I wondered about my own health struggles, I started thinking about others in my life who struggle with health, relationships, finances, and reasoning through everything that brought them to where they are today.  Distractions.  

Judgements.  I was making educated guesses that were essentially judgements about why people are suffering.  

I didn't intend to make judgements, but I think it's human nature to wonder why.  The LORD has let me know that my wondering is unproductive and unfruitful. So, what would it look like to be affected by physical ailments but unhindered by them?  

I'm not going to answer this question for you, but it is a question I'm sitting with the LORD about in my own life and I would encourage you to sit with this question in your own as well. 

2 Corinthians 4:7-18

7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 

8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 

9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed - 

10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 

11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 

12 So then death is working in us, but life in you.

13 And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak,

14 knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.

15 For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. 

16 Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  

17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.