Are you willing to create a desert or wilderness so you know God better?
Are you willing to see aloneness as a gift, instead of loneliness as a wound?
Are you going to ask for a deeper encounter with God that transforms everything?
Are you willing to go anywhere you might be asked to go?
Are you going to chose to be thankful for the hard pieces?
Whatever your questions are, are you willing to wrestle well with them?
Are you going to allow the soul searching, tectonic plate shifting that may cause earth shaking things to happen in your life?
There is a deep sigh, a breath of anxiety, that comes when we think about asking hard questions. But we are told over and over to not be afraid in Scripture. We are more than conquerors. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. When God takes something, or empties us, He always eventually replaces it with a far better gift. Don’t be afraid!
If we dare listen to God, there is often a fear we have to bridge. Or trusting Him might feel like completely setting up for failure, and it would be an impending reality if He didn’t show up. What would Elijah have done if God didn’t act when he was building altars and discussing truth with false prophets? What would Daniel and his friends have done if they would have burned in the fire? What would Noah have done if he died before a flood came? Think about almost any Biblical story, and they had faith required of them that was beyond what they seemed to have. It was beyond them, but they judged God to be faithful who had given them a promise. Perhaps the hardest question is asking if I am going to judge God as faithful?
It seems that if we want radical answers, we first must ask, seek and knock. We are called out onto precarious limbs, dangling in very uncomfortable spaces, and then when faith feels almost hopeless, the Divine answers.
Maybe we think we should have all the answers by now. We had more solutions back in our young and foolish days than we currently possess. But is it about having answers or knowing the One who has all the answers? Even as we ask the questions, we can rest in this. God has this. In Psalms 33, He says His plan is going to happen, and He will frustrate human plans.
3 Goals for the journey:
In our wrestling, striving for surrender.
Letting it rest in His hands.
Be committed to whatever the outcome.
Even when the waiting feels like forever, it's just a sign that something amazing is going to happen. God likes climaxing it as much as possible. I get weak knees at the adrenaline rush it requires to glorify Him, and yet my heart jumps up and down, begging Him to do it again.
If you end up in Africa, or Antarctica because that is His will, it's going to be an amazing adventure. God is the only limit, and those who have seen any part of Him, say that He is unlike anything seen before.
Wild rides aren't wasted on God's time. He teaches us more about Himself and our own hearts in the process of arriving at a destination than anywhere else.
In the quietness of waiting, signs are there that God is there. That Providence was working all along. A book confirms others have experiences just like yours. The lights are all green one morning to show God’s smile that someday, there will be no stopping. It may be a verse or a song that pops in your head. A sermon ironically becomes a confirmation to the wrestling of a Saturday, time and again. Sometimes, it's a desired answer, and sometimes it's a convicting lightbulb, but if you watch for it you'll find it.
Regardless of what your questions are, if you seek Him with all of your heart, He will answer. Maybe not the way you thought, but He will answer. “He is not safe, but He is good.” C.S. Lewis
No comments:
Post a Comment