...it is the only way to trust fall into God.
Past experiences have a way of obscuring our view of God. We tend to judge Him not based on Who He has proven Himself to be repeatedly but by our negative experiences. So we view the bad things about fallen mankind as the full reflection of God. If you are anything like me, then you struggle with several things. You are human. The things with which we struggle can make it hard for us to trust – to trust people, to trust ourselves and even to trust God.
Sigh. I had a conversation with someone the other day and it highlighted for me that my quest for knowledge, as benevolent as it sounded was imbalanced. I am seeking knowledge because I need to be in control. As such, I overthink a lot. Yes, I do. And no it doesn’t make me unchristian, it makes me human. Sometimes these blogs are hard to write because in being authentic, sometimes you have to expose your own struggles and that might change people’s perception of who you are. But at some point, you have to stop caring and live your truth.
My truth is that I need to know so that I can be in control so that I can check my boxes. And that is good and noble. It helps with organization and execution. However, sometimes it interferes with the will of God. God doesn’t always want us to know everything at that very moment. If we did, we wouldn’t need to trust Him. So He told me, stop seeking knowledge and seek Me. Don’t pursue knowledge, pursue Me. When you find Me, you will find the knowledge that you need.
So the paradox in my life is that I am in a season where I am hearing God very clearly. And I mean very clearly and audibly. Yet, I doubt myself at times even though I know better. Also, because I am “not hearing Him” about certain things, maybe I am not hearing Him at all. I know better. And so I will mope and stay in a low emotional state because one particular thing or situation is not being worked out as if God isn’t doing marvelous things in my life every single day.
I have a friend who shall remain nameless for now. She said to me the other day, you need to go chuck off and die. Some friend right? She said Gaye-Leon, you need to die to yourself and while you are at it, get out of your head. What does she mean? If you are close enough to me, you know I can come up with a zillion questions about one single issue and see it from another zillion perspectives. Hey, I am researcher, I am supposed to ask questions. Another friend said to me, my gosh, when you think about things like that you must be stressed out…I still think that response was a cop out to not answer my questions, but I digress.
All in all, I realise that the next season into which I am entering and for which I am currently being stretched, requires the faith of Abraham. Where God says go to a place that I will show you but that place didn’t get named and I didn’t even get a go left or go right. Stretching is painful. It is like going to the doctor and them saying, I am going to do this, and it is going to hurt but I have to do it.
You know, I have to pause and tell God I love Him because He knows me and yet He is so very patient with me. I mean He told me the other day that He is not going to wait anymore for me to get over myself, He is going to move. No wonder the stretching is so painful…and I can see myself knowing what I need to do, yet not wanting to do it, yet knowing that I can do it because Christ is in me, but also feeling like I can’t do it. And its almost as if I can see God sitting there rolling His spiritual eyes saying, you are only delaying yourself. So you can sit there. I have given you enough time to mourn and all that, now My business requires haste.
The next season requires me to still function even if I am hurting. If I lose someone or something and someone else is in need of God’s word I have to be able to get up and get over myself and do what God needs to be done…let the dead bury their dead right? And it is not that God is insensitive to what we are experiencing. In all of this He will be glorified. He is not calling me nor you to become martyrs per se because He has already died on the cross. What He is doing is calling us to dig deeper and know that it is only when we’ve truly died that we are living. It is only when we’ve come to the end of ourselves that He can truly work in us.
Sometimes we pray certain prayers when we are in His presence and then when He drops the pop quiz, not even the exam, we start wailing about how hard it is. And He shows us that our desires were good but we can’t even live up to those desires. But He doesn’t do it to deflate us, He is lovingly showing us our hearts. He is showing us the gap between our spirit man and our humanity. So our spirit wants to please Him but the flesh is woefully incapable of doing so at times. So how do we live from our spirit and connect to Source even as our flesh is dying and weak?
I don’t fully know the answer. One thing that has changed for me is that I keep going back to God. I prayed for something, it is not manifesting how I want it to. It hurts. I have to go back to God. When I told God that I didn’t want the thing to interfere with my purpose and my calling…that was my Spirit. God removed it and my flesh is in mourning as if my entire family died. I have to go back to God. Abba, I don’t know how to die to myself or how to get out of my head, show me how, I cry, as I go back to God. And the worst one, Abba, I still don’t trust You. I feel horribly about that acknowledgement. And so I come back to You. And God is saying chin up My child. I am not offended by You not trusting me. I know your process. I know your pain. I know your past. I know your present. I know your future. The trust will come. It is good that You can now see what I see about you and I love You anyway. If I had to start all over at let there be light, I would have chosen you again and again and again because in Me, you are perfect and you are whole. So stop trying to get it all together and just spend time with Me. The more you do that the more You will look like me and “have it all together”. Not because You did something in particular but because a part of the process is just being with Me.
And yes, if you know me well enough, I am very emotional because all of that literally just flowed as I was writing the blog. God loves me more than I can even fathom and He is in a season of lavishing that upon me and I don’t know what to do with myself or about His love other than allow it to overwhelm me. I have been through a lot. And that is an understatement. And God just keeps on wave after glorious wave, washing me off with His love. He is using people I would have never imagined to just love me and not even know when, how or why. It is almost as if He has decided, since I want to remain hidden behind the deeper walls, having removed the ones at the forefront, He will use the tsunami of His love to knock down the walls and rocks of Gibraltar behind and underneath which I hide. He is like a persistent Lover doing everything to woo one who wants to be wooed but doesn’t want to be wooed again because she is afraid to be hurt again, all at the same time. But, He won’t stop until I get it, get comfortable with it, start enjoying it and even then, He will just keep on loving me.
He wants to do the same for you. So as you struggle to get over yourself and out of your head, don’t try to rush or skip the process, just so you can check it off your to do list. Enjoy the pace of your process…God knows why in this moment it seems like a standstill and He also knows why in the next moment it will seem like it is going too fast. He is in control so we don’t need to be.
Whew…this might have been my longest blog…but that is just how Abba is. And just like that He has returned me to a state of peace. It still hurts but I have peace. I am still struggling with trust, but at least now I know what to pray about concerning my own personal spiritual development. And best of all, God already knows all of this, He is not offended nor disappointed. He just is. Don’t be too quick to quit or call some things dead…God might just have put them to sleep because He is still processing you and the thing has become a distraction.
So, do you need to get over yourself? When are you going to, as my friend said, chuck off and die? When will you get out of your own head? When will you stop trying to skip or rush the process?
GMW