Greetings.
Ah, seasons of God.
I have been in a season that has certainly tested me and has been molding me into a new creation. I've had a lot of time to be alone with God, (and I mean A LOT) and as a person who has always been on the other end of the spectrum as ridiculously social, I have definitely hit the wall a few times, frustrated with feeling isolated for various reasons. Christine Caine's words just keep echoing in my ears: "Embrace your place, embrace your place..." So that's what I have been doing. It started with a mental decision. I just said "Okay God, I am in this place for a reason, and I choose to follow You through it. I choose to take advantage of the alone time and use it to get closer to You, to read Your Word more, to pray more. Thanks for having my back in all of this and guiding me even when it seems like my situation is completely random and scattered." And it's amazing, for every decision I thought was completely arbitrary in my life, for every stressful situation that left me crying out wondering where God was, when life looked like scattered dots all over the map, I look back and see a perfectly straight line.
He has His hand on us through it all, but we have to LET Him. He wants to guide us through the seasons that are individually constructed to sculpt us into who He wants us to be, but we have to LET Him.
Proverbs 4:26 - "Ponder the path of thy feet, and LET all thy ways be established."
I read that verse on a late train ride home from Chicago and my mind was blown. LET. That word means we have to give up control. We have to realize that we don't know everything, that we can't make things work out the way we want them to no matter how hard we strive to control situations to ensure a favourable (in our minds) outcome.
And He said to PONDER the path of thy feet. I don't know about you, but my entire life, I didn't just ponder the path of my feet. I stomped on my own path, I made my feet go where I thought they should go regardless of what anyone else had to say about it, and almost 100% of the time found myself absolutely miserable. I got swept up in trying to please this society, in trying to validate my existence and prove my worth to a world who's demands never end. If there was a competition, I made sure I was in it, and I made sure I won it. Always. Academic, athletic, musical, I was your girl. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm not saying it to be puffed up. It's the opposite. It's a story of brokenness, of a girl who tried to gain love by being the best at everything. A girl who didn't understand how much her Creator loves her and desires her regardless of what she does or doesn't accomplish. I was so competition and fighter oriented, if any competition arose, I didn't stop and think "Well, does God want me to do this?" "Do I WANT to do this?" "Does this fit in with my heart's desires and what I just plain love to do?" "Am I doing this because I'm a perfectionist and obsessed with winning because I think it'll prove that I'm worth something?" I just immediately jumped at the chance to win more recognition.
I did that for a variety of reasons. Some people who held influential roles in my life said they loved me, but in their words and actions made it very clear that they only loved me when I made them look good. They would never be around, but when I won some new award, they would suddenly appear out of the woodworks, congratulating me publicly -but in reality it was never about me, they just wanted to look good. Through those experiences, God has taught me many things. He uses every day to continually instill His love in me, to restore me, and to heal my heart. He taught me that I can choose who is in my life -sometimes people who grow up with exposure to dysfunctional circumstances may tend to think they have to accept whoever walks into their life and that they have to put up with whatever that person brings to the table, but it's not true. Decide to stop the cycle of abuse. Decide to submit to God and let Him show you what it means to live a godly life. Let Him bring the right people into your life. And He has further taught me the beauty of forgiveness and how important it is to forgive those who hurt us. When we forgive it allows God to work in our life and the lives of those we have forgiven.
While I was brushing my teeth ten minutes ago, I was thinking about the upcoming school year, and I remembered a position I was offered on campus that looks really great on paper, but I had heard it was not an enjoyable experience at all. My old reaction would be to jump at the chance, to quickly accept the offer without considering its implications, without considering what God wanted, and without considering what I wanted. All I would think is "Oh okay awesome, I just got offered this really great thing that's going to look legendary on my resume. Yes yes yes!" It would absolutely be an auto-pilot reaction. But I was standing in the mirror, brushing my pearly whites, and all of a sudden God just said "You don't have to say yes to everything." I almost choked on my toothpaste. Such a simple concept (as it usually is) yet to someone who was so programmed to mindlessly and unwisely accept any offer that society deemed admirable, it was a spiritual smack upside the head. Saying no does not make me or you less of a person and it does not make me or you a failure. I'm not accepting the offer because I plain don't want to do it, and regardless of the recognition it may bring, it is not something that God wants me to sign up for. I've realized that seeking and desiring His will above all else is imperative to living a successful life.
So. I know I'm not the only one that deals with this kind of stuff. If you're reading this and you feel the pressure to live up to someone else's standards and expectations, you feel unloved unless you perform in a certain way, or you just find yourself saying yes to anything and everything [the "disease to please" as we call it] just take a step back. Realize how much the Creator of the universe intimately loves you, realize that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, and above all else, just choose to walk with God in every second of every day. PONDER the path of your feet -don't stomp around trying to make a square fit in a circle. That's how I always felt. I was doing things I didn't love just for the recognition. I was trying to make myself into a person that I simply was not destined to be -I wasn't living a life to discover the desires, dreams, and loves that God planted in me from the foundation of the world.
When you narrow your audience down to One, when you live to love and please the sweet Father that made you, it allows Him to work in your life and it allows Him to guide your paths through it all. Pray that HE would order your steps, that HE would reveal to you HIS plans for the life you live [I don't like saying 'your life' because it really isn't our life. It all goes back to Him.] Pray that He would bring divine connections into your life. Make sure you forgive those who you hold bitterness against. It is vital. He loves us through anything and everything, so we must love others through anything and everything. You are the apple of His eye. Choose Him in every circumstance, and when you're looking backwards instead of forwards, you'll see a perfectly straight line covered in God's goodness and favour.
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