It's really no secret that my year hasn't exactly gone according to plan. You know that phrase, the one about us making plans and God having himself a good laugh? That has been ringing true for the last 14 months. Even when I can lay out every detail of what's "going to" happen, and I think I know for sure exactly what I want, there's about a 99.847% chance that I'm wrong about some or all of it. I'm notorious for making swift decisions and changing direction at dizzying speeds. It's a necessity considering the life I've had and the world I live in. In the last year I've made so many of those sharp turns that I hardly recognize myself. Not that it's a bad thing. The Lord works for my good, and I've grown so much. I'm headed for great things, and I've trusted my gut and my conscience and the voice of God, even when it seemed to me that I was being led in an absolutely mad direction.
But every once in a while I get stubborn about something. I push and pull and exhaust myself trying to make something happen because I'm so sure that it's exactly what I want and absolutely nothing else will do.
And I can confidently say that I will spend my entire life begging God's forgiveness for being so arrogant.
I'm a passionate person. I feel things deeply. So now and then I have trouble distinguishing between "this just feels right" and "I just feel strongly about this". Here, at the corner of "I want" and "I should", is where I run into trouble. Sometimes I spend months just sitting at that corner, because I want something so deeply. For pity's sake, I'm me, right? So obviously I know what's best for me, better than anyone else, even God!
This, my dear friends, is the biggest lie we tell ourselves.
"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'" (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Waiting is hard. Especially for me. To wait is to not know. To wait is to put out your efforts and hope you get results. Yet, it's tempting to stretch out the waiting when an answer becomes clear, it's not what you thought, and the next step is to trust. Because while waiting is hard, trusting is even worse. Waiting is holding on. Trusting is letting go. They are both verbs. But one just seems to involve more control than the other. To trust is to give up control. To trust is to admit you were wrong. To trust is to jump into the great unknown believing that your plans, with all their glittery happiness, were somehow not the best for you. It still isn't easy for me. I don't think it will ever be easy for me. With the decisions I'm currently facing I have already had several crying tantrums. But when I've cried myself out I look back to all the times I've done exactly hat I didn't want to do and was more blessed than I ever could have imagined, and I know that God, as always, knows what he's doing.
"When I am afraid, I will trust in you." (Psalm 56:3)
