I promised something halfway substantive. Fair warning, though, a distinct starting point does not ensure a distinct or even relevant end point. I take rabbit trails...a lot. Most of the time, I eventually get back to my original destination. So here goes...
I figure it's time to put all the things I've been learning lately together in one place. God taught me a lot last semester about letting others (specifically Him) lead. I thought I had a pretty good grip on this awesome lesson, but apparently not, as I had much more to learn over break. I needed to learn more about trusting God's plan and trusting that God knows better than I do what may or may not be good for me. We must learn to trust God in all things and know that He will guide our lives: past, present, and future. When we try to take things upon ourselves, it doesn't work.
When studying verses like 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, and Galatians 1:3, my pastor back home likes to point out that "grace" always comes before "peace," always. The reason, Pastor Tony likes to say, "is that you cannot experience the peace of God until you have experienced the grace of God." His point in all of this is that if you have not known God's grace and received His gift of eternal life to be at peace with God, you cannot know the peace of God. Thinking about this quote the other day took me one step further. Not only must we have experienced the grace of God, we must acknowledge that grace. If we do not attribute to God's grace that which we see accomplished in our lives, we run the risk of accrediting things to personal strength. This leads to pride, pride leads to downfall. We must fully embrace that everything has been God's doing, not our own. Our own strength will inevitably fall short, leaving us frustrated.
We need to trust God with our present. I went through Obadiah a couple of weeks ago and was blown away by the evidence that "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16), even Obadiah. Essentially, the book is about God telling Obadiah, "Go tell the Edomites I am going to smite them." Why? The Edomites, the descendants of Esau, were resentful of the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob (see Genesis 25: 28-34; and 27). The Edomites treated the Israelites rather poorly, and God was upset that the Edomites were messing with His chosen people. I think it goes deeper than that. I think the larger problem was that the Edomites didn't trust God, they didn't trust His judgment, and they didn't trust His plans. The Edomites thought that the inheritance of Israel was rightfully theirs. God, however, had appointed that the inheritance would go to Israel. The Edomites didn't trust that God's plan was the best plan. They thought their ideas as to where they should be were better than God's. They were arrogant: "The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in the loftiness of your dwelling place, who say in your heart, 'who will bring me down to earth?'" (Obadiah 1:3). Don't we do the same thing? We may not particularly like the circumstances we are in and figure that we could have worked things better than God (even though we fall into many situations because of our own stubbornness). We forget that God has a perfect plan for our lives. We forget that God can use our circumstances to work in and through us. So God might have to take us down a notch or two. The sooner we realize that we need to be where God needs us to be and not necessarily where we would most like to be, the more He can use us.
I tend to fall into the trap of "if only"s. I have a hyperactive imagination. This is wonderful when I need to be creative. It's a downright pain when I'm trying to stay grounded. All last semester, when I really started learning to let others lead, I still managed to let my imagination run rampant. I'd imagine these elaborate scenarios and conversations that I would have loved to see take place. (In retrospect, had I written half of these things down I would have a great start to a really cheesy novel, or at least a decent soap opera.) All the while, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with myself for being so--well--shallow, immature, you name it. What was worse, I was actually getting disappointed when my daydreams didn't turn to realities. Can you imagine? Ok, my point (I do have one this time, I promise)...God had to knock some sense back into me. My frustration grew to a breaking point and I finally realized (in prayer nonetheless) that I had been putting my trust and my hope in man and not in Him. So of course I was frustrated, of course I was disappointed...but in God one is never disappointed. "God is not a man, that He should lie..." (Numbers 23:19). I wasn't trusting in God's plan for my future but devising my own future and when my plans didn't come to fruition, I was frustrated, HA!
Sidenote: I can just imagine how God must feel. God has a plan for our lives and knows all that is in store for us but instead of going A-B-C we, in our stubbornness, have to swing by Q, Z, and K first. I have a feeling that God's watching us thinking, "You know, this can be a whole lot easier than you are making it out to be."
Back on track...I had to surrender that which I was holding on to. The one thing that I really wanted to happen (and still wouldn't mind) I had to give over to God and say "You know what is best for my life, not me. If this be Your will, wonderful. If not, then I trust You to have a perfect plan for me and that You have something else in store." When we trust in God, we should trust in God completely. He doesn't need our advice, He doesn't need us backseat-driving. He knows what He is doing, go figure.
Well, after rambling so long, I'd like to congratulate anyone who was actually able to make it through the whole of my thinking. Extra kudos to anybody who understood it at all.
Thou wilt make known to me the path of life;
In Thy presence is fullness of joy;
In Thy right hand there are pleasures forever.
--Psalm 16:11
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