Sometimes it feels like God is far away.
It feels like things don't change and your heart still gets trampled the same way and your prayers are unanswered and life is hard. I have felt that for a season in some areas in my life.
I decided to take this January as a month to be still. To get quiet with God and let Him stir up my heart a bit. (I am one who can go through the motions and not be listening....more like petitioning God and then moving on, not waiting or giving Him a chance to actually participate in our relationship sadly, and then wonder why he is feeling far away.)
As I sat with my Abba He poured in and loved me well. He showed me the areas that I still was trying to negotiate my obedience, idols that I had set up, mostly my comfort, security and pride. I felt Him calling me into unknown again, a place where He shows me more of who He is while I hang on and trust bc I don't know what the end of this path is. And to be honest, I still didn't want to follow, not because he hasn't proven himself faithful before, but because I didn't want to lose position and standing in people's eyes, because I know where and what to expect right now, because it is hard work to obediently look at my baggage and let God help me sort through it.
I just got home from Uganda. Going on this trip for me was less about calling and more about an adventure, and chance to connect with a friend and a chance to serve alongside friends, but God's grace uses even a my mixed motivations to show up. The retreat we served at, a place for us to bless others, turned into a blessing for me. A place of God showing up through the fact that I was completely operating out of my weakness (therefore his strength) and through the stories and faith of the people I got the privilege to meet. These people said yes to obedience and the cost was often so much greater than people's opinion of them or their pride. Their lives are surrendered to God's next whisper to them. So many times I listened to stories of their obedience and was moved to tears. But here's the thing: it turns out that people are people everywhere, in the US and Africa. They have the same exact struggles we do: worry, doubts, conflict in family and friendship, God feeling far away.....I also got the privilege of hearing these stories. And through it all, on both sides of the globe, we serve the same big God who is singing over us a love song....a song that invites us to know His delight in us despite our struggle. He invites us to receive that love and then to give it away because He won't run out!
So now I am home wrestling in the middle of the night with what I am going to do with everything I have learned. We get a short window here on earth....and am I going to use it to be comfortable or am I going to use it to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding? God is so much more than my small understanding of Him and by saying yes to a passionate pursuit of Him whatever that may mean, may make me uncomfortable .....may make me different, may feel scary, but He is a God who invites me in with an offering of more love than I can imagine, grace beyond my wildest dreams, faithfulness to keep pursuing me even in my selfish wandering, Jesus...he invites me in with his son Jesus who made a way for me to know him more and more.
So I will not only listen, I will trust and obey and step into an unknown that God knows everything about already and look forward to what He is going to do. Join me and remind me fellow travelers on the days I say this is hard...to lean in and keep trusting that God wants me to believe He is who He says He is and not my limited understanding of Him so far.
This prayer was one that the Holy Spirit used to stir up my complacent heart. As I read it, I knew that I wasn't living completely surrendered.....
The Covenant Prayer by John Wesley
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to do what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
Let the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen
......may it continually be my prayer for days and years to come.
