Irony is God’s specialty. When God is working in your life, He sends you the same message from all sorts of different places. He puts the song on repeat. Through song, through message, through conversation with friends. Perhaps eventually you just begin looking for that message from all sides.
For a while now, I have spent time talking about fears and anxiety, about pain and unmet longings. God is continuing to show me where I am not trusting him.
I have been wanting to write about this instance of God working for a while, but I am still processing what it all means.
If God is real, then_______??
This was the theme of the weekend. Women gathered far and wide to experience a little bit of Him in worship, teaching and fellowship. Even sitting in an unknown church, this gathering, the If:Gathering was a disruption to my ordinary routine.
And let me tell you, this wasn’t an easy thing for me. I couldn’t get any of my friends to come, so I went alone. But this was necessary and good. I was challenged and pushed out of my comfort zone by God. I needed to disrupt my life a little to hear God speak to me. I needed to go somewhere outside of my comfort zone to allow God in.
See, I have built a very comfortable routine and life and it is easy for me to forget that God is doing something bigger than my comfortable life. It is so easy to let yourself sink into routine and comfort with relationships, work, and life. We like the expected. Most often though that isn’t the place that God does the most work.
And I have been longing….begging God to work in my life, to help make sense of my restlessness.
Down deep in my soul, I have felt him stirring. I have felt it as I have written on this blog and written in my journal, pouring out words that don’t make sense, ideas that are scattered and too big for me to even understand.
He is making it clear that in all that I do not trust Him, that I am not believing in His goodness and promises. I so often want to just muster up my own strength and just go do it. I am very capable and I should be able to be enough for me,right??
However, the tears and the snot in my pillow say otherwise. The ache, the restlessness tell me otherwise.
As I made plans to attend this weekend and make steps towards him, the attacks began. Attacks of doubt, extreme anxiety, throat grabbing fear. Fears of doubt and skepticism, fears of what would happen if I let God all the way in. Fears of not wanting him to disrupt anything.
But yet, I went anyway. And it was good. Here are a few gems.
“He uses the wilderness for good.”
“Faith doesn’t erase, doubt, insecurity, suffering, and fear, it overcomes them.”
“He is a promise land God.”
“Don’t wait till you have full possession of knowledge until you take full possession of God.”
“When God is pruning us, he is shaping us to take our roots deep.”
“He is not the god of I was, but I AM.”
(There was so much more, but I can’t write it all here!)
As we read and studied Joshua 1, we ended the weekend with the BIG question:
This prompted thousands of women to ask themselves if they are trusting in God, having faith in Him, and how is that going to transform their lives. We wrote it on stones and marked the moment.
For me, it became very clear, that I hold back from God. I resist his work in my life. I run.
But “I need to stop running and embrace my reality. I need to embrace His plan for my right now instead of running.” (From my notes!) I numb myself out, I distract myself with everything else, rather then sit and listen to what God is teaching me. I am afraid to trust him with all my longings and hopes and dreams. I am afraid that my dreams are wrong or too big. I am afraid that my longings are sinful and stupid.
So as I left the weekend and even now as I sit and continue to think on what God is doing in my heart. I am meditating on these two things.
Dig in and Let go
Dig into HIM: to know him, to let him in every part of my life, to trust HIM, to know his heart and desires for my life.
Let Go: of all the fears, sins, and anxiety that I have let rule my life.
So friends, If God is real, then what??
Do we really have the faith that we claim to have and if we did, what would that mean for our lives? How would that transform our callings, our relationships, how we live and breath, and go about our day?
Join with me and ask these questions, and trust and believe that God is who he says he is.
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Anchor of my Soul 