Convenient: fitting in well with a person’s needs, activities, and plans.

How many times in a day do you wish something was more convenient? “Man, I wish I had teleporting powers, it would make this grocery trip so convenient. Why do we have to wear masks? They’re so irritating and inconvenient!” Do you find yourself saying these things? Because I find myself saying them a lot.

Hi, my name is Vivica, and I’m a convenience addict. I like it when things come together and things or people around me make what I’m doing easier. I like to figure out the best possible way to fit things in MY plans. Then I read this book called The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. In letter 23 it says that God does not like to be convenient. That line stuck with me a bit, but I wrote it off.

“I don’t think I treat God as a convenience. I just accept His blessings and favor. What’s wrong with asking for things to be easier?”

Then I read 1 Samuel (for a home study from a book called After God’s Heart by Myrna Alexander). After the study, someone pointed out how God shut Hannah’s womb. I was like ‘Why did you make things harder for her God? She just wanted a baby?’ Then the study brought up Isaiah 55:8-9.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV

God showed me that if Hannah had not gone to the temple to pray, we would not have read about Eli. She may not have dedicated Samuel (for many children were used as farmhands back then), and so many other things would have changed if things were easier for her. In fact, later on in 1 Samuel, Saul gets in trouble for doing something because it was easier to. He made a sacrifice that Samuel was supposed to do because the men were scared and they had to wait for Samuel (1 Samuel 13: 6-14). He took matters into his own hands because it was easier.

In an attempt to make things easier, quicker, more convenient, I do things myself. I take matters into my own hands. But where is God in that? Is He just slipped into my to-do list? Or have I slipped Him in as an afterthought? Or is He just a part of my day when He’s convenient? When something good, like those blessings and favors, happen?

No one wants to be a convenience to others. We don’t to be used like that. We want to be loved, in the good and the bad, and the frustrating difficulties. We want someone there. God does too. He wants us in the good, the bad, and the difficulties. He wants to love us. He is Love, and love is not convenient.

Love is work. I’ve seen my parents (who have been married for 25 years next month) work through misunderstandings, frustrations, three rowdy girls, fights, and CoVid! Yet, because they worked together, didn’t give up, didn’t go for the easiest thing, they have thrived in love and are still going strong.

God wants to work with us in this life. He doesn’t want to be convenient. He wants to be a part of our life, of us. Yes, He will bless us and grant us favor, but He is also willing to be our shoulder to cry on, our anchor of wisdom in the sea of frustration, be our rock. We just have to let Him and be willing to go through it with Him. We have to accept the difficulties and the ease, just as He accepts us at our worst and our best.

So, on my road to recovery, I vow to seek God, not ease. I vow to focus on how I can work with God. I vow to love to God.

Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.

1 Samuel 12:24 NKJV