Repeated Lessons: Patience and Relaxing
I don’t know how to put this into exact words, but I feel, in some ways, that life is unraveling for me. It’s a good thing, but it’s not fun to go through. Everything I thought I had a handle on or understood has come under review by God and what doesn’t work is being burned away. The lessons I’ve learned so far are to trust God, relax, that God is fully in control, and that my own understanding is bunk.
I’ve gone through two times in the past two months where God has seemed to really be pulling stuff out of me to fix. It’s bad enough he’s using the sharpest of metal chopsticks to dig around the mess that he’s pulling up, but the process of using the chopsticks to loosen up the bulb and then pry it up and open to make it pop out is worse. What’s the worst is that open, gaping wound that now needs to fill up and heal. (What goes there now? I was comfortable with that problem bulb. Now my body has to adjust to something new and better.)
There are now several of these holes healing while God keeps digging stuff up to get it out of me, and it hurts. This whole process hurts. It sucks.
But it’s necessary. I need to relax and let God be God.
I want to grow and be a better person and the best child of God that I can be. In order for me to do that I have to be able to completely trust Him. I went through a trust trial in 2006 that I don’t want to return to again (six months’ unemployment from a layoff that hit as I was rebuilding my savings, rejected by over 35 companies until I finally had a friend who interviewed for a company, didn’t want the job, and told them about me, and they hired me, oh, and I almost lost my home).
Lately, I’ve tried to figure things out on my own instead of just doing what I do, in faith, and letting God handle the rest. I’ve been saying I’ll let God handle things, but really haven’t trusted him because I want answers NOW. I want resolution NOW. I want quirky things I do to mean something influential for my desired outcome, which may not be the best things for me, even though it will hurt to discover that. I’ll get over it, but I would be sorely disappointed.
I need to prayer journal so I can see a conversation with God and see how He worked it out so I can remember what He’s done. I’ve actually been having some really specific prayers lately and a return to seeking God more meaningfully in the Bible and in prayer throughout the day – and not just praying at God, but actually holding a conversation with him. I’ve been noticing things that are recent blessings in my life (things, situations, people, ideas, etc.) and I am trying to not mess them up, but I feel God could speed things along, but that’s just my impatience talking again.
It’s funny – everything I’ve been worried about lately has actually not been a cause for concern. And even if it is a cause for concern, I keep hearing a voice tell me, “I am bigger than anything that could be thrown at this or you. If I want it to be, it will be. When I say yes, no one can say no.” (Hey, Michelle Williams!)
I should rest in that, right? I should stop returning to this place to learn lessons in patience and trust, right? I’m learning and growing. Even as I’m writing this I’m praying that publicly confessing this doesn’t impact something else I’m praying for and really want. That’s not the nature of trust and leads me back down a road of re-learning this lesson, and sets me on a path to ruin something that the Lord told me excites him (as much as it does me) because of the potential greatness – all because I can’t calm down and just wait on God. Sigh. My mind is like a fevered dream sometimes.
Pray with me that I trust God fully. I’m thankful for this time in my life and things that have happened to make me stretch my faith and trust God and work on trusting Him completely and not what I think I understand or “know”. He’s in control and I’m not. He can see things I can’t see. I’m thankful that God is patient, loving, kind, merciful, and long-suffering. I’d be “done” with me if I were Him.
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Category: Christianity, Life
