Heather like many believers want desperately to do the will of God, but often we are torn with where God would want us to go. There are a few things about the character of God that I believe come into play when we are trying to "be all we can be" for Christ.
1. My mom once told me that the ways of God are logical. I completely disagree with that notion, and respectfully disagreed with my Mother. For instance when he tells us to love our enemies in Matthew 5:43-48. That is not logical in our context and for most of us is a very difficult process. GOD IS IN THE BUSINESS OF FORMING HIMSELF IN US, a very painful process at times. If we will allow ourselves to submit to His plan for our lives it is often going to cost us something.
2. The vein to finding what God wants us to do always involves faith. Faith is where the rubber meets the road. My buddy Jay called me a month ago and told me that his father is dying of progressive cancer, I hurt for him. The one thing I could say to him is "it's easy to live for God when all is well, but the true test of what we believe and who we believe in, is when things everything is falling apart. " I continued " today is the day that you put into action all that you've believed, all these years." "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." Psalms 23:4a Here we see the true test of faith; God I trust in the good, and I trust you in the bad.
3. I believe the last thing is that God works on a totally different time frame than we do. Two days ago I got hungry, I'm mean really hungry! So I pulled off an exit to a fast food joint and filled my belly, instant gratification. Somewhere in our humanness we believe that God works on the same time frame, and he doesn't. Growth takes time. I was driving through Payson Arizona and saw they were re-planting thousands of trees that had burnt down in a forest fire a few years back. The landscape is horrific, but in 20 years it will be a beautiful forest again. God often allows us to remain patient to show us who is really in control, and then reminds us of passages like Matthew 6:25-34.
I have had numerous friends that tried to have kids and were unable, truly sad. They would pray, we would pray on their behalf. They would explore all the medical options that are available to a couple looking to conceive, nothing. So, they give up trying and began the process of adoption, a wonderful thing, and then they get pregnant. The first time this happened, my thought was how cool that it all worked out. The second time it happened I started to wonder what was going on. The third time, I saw something I hadn't seen about the character of God; we are always in the process of telling God what we want and never asking what He wants for us. Now, I am not saying that every couple that wants a baby needs to go through this process and then they will get pregnant. I believe there is truth in the giving up and having patience in the process of God forming himself in us.
I hope this is helpful, interact with this post and let's ask the questions that have been on your mind.
love you all,
jeff
2 comments:
So finding the right path tends to involve pain, faith, and loads of patience?...Seems completely in line with my experience and all that God seems to be saying when we "sync" (which is mostly just "wait heather! I'm not telling you yet!") Haha.
I was thinking the other day about your talk when I was praying, and how God wants us to take risks for Him. It seems the risk often lies in going somewhere or doing something out of our comfort zone. I'm finding that God can ask us to risk by *not* going and by *not* doing. For someone who loves to go and do, sitting around and waiting for the right thing can be quite unnerving. (Especially in, ohh, the event where someone's graduation and need to find a job with health benefits is looming in the not-so-distant future..)
Ah, well---faith and patience (and pain?)!
We're living on the eeedge! (you can't help yourself at allllll!)
I also really like your thoughts on the more recent post---our discomfort is a reminder that this is not where we belong.
God bless!
Heather
I, no surprise, agree with you on this blog as well. God does not work in "mysterious," or "logical," ways but it totally mind-blowing what-in-the-world-are-you-serious ways. I've pretty much determined that almost everything our human nature tells us to do is the opposite of what God wants us to do. What gets me are those people who are always going "why God why?!" Sure, it's good to question things, but truly, who are they to question the authority of the Almighty? Do they honestly think that their mind could even handle His plan if it was revealed to them? Their brain would most likely explode, literally. I feel like when I die, hopefully, God will show me what it was all about and I'm going to say "yep, that makes sense Lord." But only then will it make sense. "Logic," is probably just one of the ways satan pulls many of us down.
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