It is amazing how God works.
How He is so patient.
How He orchestrates things in my life.
How He knows right when I will be ready for the next step.
How He will do this over and over and OVER again until His hard headed, stubborn, good intentioned little girl FINALLY submits to Him and His will.
OH, HOW MUCH HE LOVES ME!
There is a shift
happening in my life, in my spirit and soul right now. I survived another storm, I almost allowed myself
to drown, but I finally reached out to grab my Saviors hand and I am one by one
letting go of the rocks that were dragging me down.
The beginning of this month saw the beginning
of two new studies at church. One is Not A Fan by Kyle Idleman and the other is
Me, Myself and Lies by Jennifer Rothschild.
In these two studies, I am simultaneously learning what it is that
following Christ truly means and what is keeping me from being able to do this.
See I am a Christian, but as hard as I have been trying to be what I THOUGHT
God wanted me to be, I was not being a follower of Christ. I was still trying
to get it on my own. I was still compartmentalizing my life, I was still
holding on to what I wanted and not allowing God to have ALL of me! It is a
crazy concept. It goes against EVERYTHING our nature says, it is unknown and
can seem REALLY scary. I mean what will God ask me to do? AM I really willing
to give up EVERYTHING? AM I really willing to do ANYTHNG to follow Christ? What
is that one thing that would be your “but that”?
For me it is I
will do ANYTHING for you Lord, but be single, I do not want to be single I do
not want to be alone. So I will follow you and obey you until I feel lonely and
begin to feel insecure and start to fear that you won’t allow me to be married.
Then I will go out and try to figure it out for myself because:
“I don’t think you understand just how important this is to me, Lord, and you don’t seem to have any intention of allowing me to have this because I am still waiting, but I still love you and I will obey you in everything else…well most everything else…as far as anyone looking from the outside can see anyways…
So is this what
God is asking of me? I do not know! I know that is what is He is calling me to
right now, but forever, I do not know. I can hope and pray about it, but I HAVE
to trust Him. I have to want Him and be willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING,
ANYTHING for Him first.
There is a verse that God showed me not long after I separated from my husband and was feeling very afraid and discouraged,
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 ESV
He has been teaching me since what
this really means to me in my life. The emphasis on this verse is not that God
will give me what I desire, but that He will FILL me with HIS desires! HELLO!
Have you ever thought about that? It is amazing how the whole meaning of a
verse can change when you move the emphasis off what God can do for you, and
instead put the emphasis on how you can use it to serve God!
He never promises easy, safe, or
comfortable. On the contrary, trusting Him is HARD, it can sometimes be
unnerving, it is not easy being patient, it is not easy learning to wait on
Him, it is not easy doing things He requires of us, but He is FAITHFUL! No
matter where we find ourselves if we are truly FOLLOWING Christ, we will never
have to fear for our future because it is in HIM!
I am learning,
have been for quite a while, and will continue to learn and fall and get up
again. But see, it is not about succeeding, it is about my heart. What is my heart’s
DESIRE? If it is anything other than
following Christ and loving Him with all that I am, well, then it does not
matter what I have done, learned, or overcome.
My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God,who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
So whom are you living for? Are you giving God EVERYTHING? Are you willing to do ANYTHING?
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