My generation has spent countless time and hours trying to label us all and everyone around us, including our own children, to help us understand ourselves and each other better. We've taken numerous assessments--learning style, leadership style, personality type, birth order, love language, spiritual gifts--the list could go on and on, and quite frankly, most people I meet typically know themselves pretty well, and based on all this information people like to think they know each other and their children pretty well also.
Yet, God is God (Exodus 3:14) because we will never be able to understand him completely. (Isaiah 55:8) We will never be able to know Him enough. We can never put Him in a box of our own design and definition of who He is. And if we could, then He would cease to be God, so it blows my mind that any of us would ever dare to think we've finally got it all figured out, that we know God. And yet, don't we all come to a place in life where we think we know, only for God to turn us on our head and say, "Nope. You don't."
And I find that's where I am in this moving journey, sitting at the feet of my Lord, trusting Him, and to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever really done that before. Not completely.
No, my type-A, administrative, visual, first born, quality-time self has spent most of my life in a state of stress. I've felt it since I was a child. My teachers were plagued by my tears in class from first grade on when I would inevitably lose control of my emotions over something that was too difficult for me in the moment, something I hadn't been prepared for, something that wasn't perfect, or something that was out of my control. Seriously, I can remember being barely able to hold back tears in front of my college chemistry professor as I struggled to understand the concept of a mole. Making mistakes has never been an option for me, and when I make them, I beat myself up and try harder and practice more and make sure to cover all my bases until it doesn't happen again, to ensure it doesn't happen again. Needless to say, I've worked hard and excelled, but the amount of joy I've experienced along the way compared to the amount of stress has always been completely out of balance.
God's been working on me for a long time to set those scales in balance.
And maybe at the age of 33, I'm finally to a point where He can get through to me a little because I can actually look back over the past two years and see Him move in my life, working the whole time to get me to this point where I will trust Him only. Completely. Let me give you a recent example...
Moving to California is mind-blowing to me. It seems like a huge elephant of a task that we are taking down one bite at a time, and for me, this means laying it all out at the feet of God and trusting Him completely in the moments when I am overwhelmed and paralyzed by the thoughts of the journey ahead. For me, choosing schools for my children for the 2014-2015 school year has been on the top of my priorities list--before selling our house or trying to find a new one out there, I needed to find quality schools for my kids. (Because let's face it, for me, a kindergarten public school class size of 35 with no paraprofessional just wasn't an option. Just sayin'.)
After researching dozens of schools and touring a handful, we narrowed it down to one. One school. One school that we prayed and felt was the best fit. One. Now for me, the idea of one automatically means that leaves no room for mistakes on my part. Deciding to apply to one school leaves no room for me to have missed God's direction in the midst of my own selfish desires. It leaves no room for a plan B. It doesn't give me a back-up plan if for some reason this one school doesn't accept us. Applying to one school is simply something I never would have done in the past.
No, in the past, I would have covered all my bases. I would have applied to at least three schools just to be on the safe side, just to make sure I wasn't in a panic in the face of an application deadline. And then if our first choice didn't accept us, I would sigh, giving myself a little pat on the back for being so on top of things, and chalk it up to, 'God must have wanted a different school for us.' This gives you a glimpse of how I've learned to manage my stress level in my own flesh. It is more costly from a financial and time standpoint, but to me, it's always worth it if I don't have to stress, if I have a plan B. (Writing this I am just now seeing the folly of that thinking because quite honestly taking the extra steps to manage future stress is stressful!)
So now, in steps God, finally able to get my attention after a long humbling process that has been a cycle in my life for years and years, and this time I find myself hearing Him tell me to apply to one school. Just one. So I apply to one school. And then I spend the next month handing this decision back over to Him, over and over and over and over again--in my head--letting go of every desire I have to follow through with other schools just in case. Because that's all they are, MY desires. Not the Lord's. I'm battling the fear that I've made a mistake, that my choice isn't the right one. But God is the One who said apply to just one school, and even if I did hear Him wrong, blinded by my own desires for this one school, I have to believe, He will work it out for me.
I have to quit fearing that I'm going to miss God.
Because to be honest, even in the times when I look back on my life, and I see where I think I missed God's direction, where I chose what I wanted at the time instead of what He was leading me to do, even in those moments, I can still see how He wove the lessons that followed into my story. So if that's the case, if that's how it turns out, I'm not sure we actually ever "miss" God's leading, we just end up missing a blessing of His choosing at that time in that journey in exchange for another blessing at the end of the lessons and path we have to take when we choose to do things our way. (Because ultimately His will will be accomplished--anyone learned that the hard way yet?) And I'm seeing now that while my selfish choices do get worked to His glory and my blessing in the end, the path you have to take to get there really isn't all that fun; however, if I choose the path He directs me to the first time, even if it doesn't look fun or easy or quite what I had in mind, if I choose to follow Him down His path the first time, His presence makes all the hard parts bearable because there's no broken fellowship over my selfish choices, and His strength brings joy in the midst of trial instead of exhaustion and misery when I choose to do things my way. His way makes all the difference!
Ultimately, either way, God wins. He gets the glory. The difference is when I trust Him completely, He fills me fully. There's no room to doubt myself because I didn't do anything. I didn't cover any extra bases. I didn't stress over any details. I didn't do anything except the one thing God asked me to do, and in the meantime, I get to rest in Him, letting go of worries, anxieties, and "what ifs". I get to cast all my cares on Him. (1 Peter 5:7) I get to forgive myself for worrying and second guessing and doubting. I get to tell the devil to go take a hike every time his lies encroach on God's truth for my life. And even though all these things are daily battles in my mind, ultimately, I keep coming back to the final outcome is one that rests in the Lord's hands because I'm trusting Him. (1 John 5:4) No matter what. I'm trusting Him. If the door shuts on that one path I thought He pointed me down, then I will turn back to Him in prayer and ask, seek, and knock until the next door opens, and I will trust Him to be all that I need. (Matthew 7:7-8)
And the outcome? PEACE! JOY! FREEDOM! No stress. No fear. No limitations because with my God all things are possible! (Matthew 19:26)
And when I get an email, a whole month ahead of schedule, before the school interview even takes place, telling me that my daughter has been accepted into the ONE school we applied to, when I get that email, then what happens?
JOY! Unspeakable, irrational, overwhelming, let-me-shout-it-from-the-rooftops, let me tell every person I know about my God, my Jesus, my Lord who is faithful to His children (1 Thessalonians 5:24), Who gives good gifts in abundance (2 Corinthians 9:8), Who rewards those who have faith (Hebrews 11:6b), Who is bigger than any plans I could ever dream (Proverbs 16:9)!!!! Praise be to HIS NAME ALONE!!!!! I can't even pat myself on the back for this one....at all. The only thing I did was do the one thing He asked me to do, so it was His idea, not mine.
For once in my life, I didn't add anything of me or mine to God's plan. And the outcome has been pure, unadulterated Joy! With no stress, just peace! Imagine that. Imagine that God actually does do and act exactly the way He says He will. Oh we of little faith! How jaded we are by the sinful world that surrounds us. How limited we are in our thinking that our only point of reference for a relationship with the Lord is our relationships with other sinful humans. So very thankful God is So. Much. Higher.
It's taken me 33 years of a stressed-out life to realize the importance of this moment, and I'm not foolish enough to think I won't make the same mistakes again in the future, but for this moment, for this moment I want to raise my Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:12) in remembrance of what God has done and is doing in my life. I want this blog to be a stone of remembrance to bring me back to the day my God asked me to strike the rock ONE time and the water flowed, instead of striking it twice out of my own frustration, need for control, or disbelief. (Exodus 17:6 vs. Numbers 20:11)
Trust Him. Trust Him no matter the circumstance. Trust Him no matter the outcome. Stop expecting God to be what you think He should be--our minds are so small. Trust Him to blow our minds completely because that's exactly what He will do because that's the truth of who He is! (Isaiah 55:9) After all, He is God. And when He blows up the box you've put Him in and does something extraordinary that only God can do, make sure He gets ALL the credit and all the glory and all the lip service His God-ways deserve because I'm counting on the fact when He receives all the credit and all the glory that He will continue to show up again and again and again.
Yep, I'm counting on that because there's so many more big decisions that I need to trust Him with coming my way, but if anyone deserves all the attention, it's definitely Him and not me=)
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