It's a long story that I have no issue sharing in detail should someone ask, but for the sake of brevity: I am no longer staffing Awaken DTS (at least, not April 2016). It was something I felt Him call me to that became a passion on my heart as I dreamed with Him about it. My heart was fully invested in it and in the students I was about to meet and walk alongside, and then at the last minute the funds still had not come in and I felt like God told me to lay this dream to rest [for now]. I was supposed to be leaving today to meet up with the rest of the school staff, but instead now I'm sitting on my bed processing this deep ache in the pit of my stomach.
I've processed loss before - it's miserable, but it hasn't killed me yet. This one has been different, though. This isn't the loss of a person or a material thing, it's the loss of a dream and all of the anticipation associated with it. And it is VERY confusing!! God gave me something and now He has seeming taken it away. Instead of letting this shake my faith in His character, I have chosen to continue to trust in WHO He is and the fact that I don't always know what His plan is. It's tempting to let myself get angry and entitled, indignant even, but then who am I to get offended by God? Even Job's response in his loss was "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. Adonai gave and Adonai has taken away; blessed be the name of Adonai." (Job 1:21) It isn't that I believe that God is mean and took this away from me for no reason. I do not know if this is something He meant for a different time, if I heard Him wrong, or if there were other circumstances that needed to come into alignment that simply didn't. What I do know is that He loves me and that I can trust Him. Initially I felt justified in feeling like my TRUST in Him had been shaken. After all, I thought He was leading me one way and then all of a sudden that door was shut and all of my plans got turned upside down! But then He started stirring something in me and convicting me about the way I was thinking about it. If I can so easily toss away my "trust" in Him as soon as I don't like what's happening, then was it even trust to begin with? It's easy to follow along with someone who is clearly giving you good things and bringing you somewhere you want to go; but when you have a blindfold on and can't tell which way you're walking, then it takes trust to still let them lead you. I've always asked God to teach me how to love Him better - which I'm increasingly realizing is a very dangerous prayer. He's teaching me how to love Him better by giving me an opportunity to practice trusting Him. You can't have an intimate relationship with someone if you don't trust them, and genuine trust isn't something that just happens - it's something that grows and develops as you walk in relationship with them. It's something you have to practice. In Hebrews 12, Paul quotes Proverbs when he says "My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son." I don't truly trust God if that trust is dependent on my happiness in my circumstances. Trust is surrendering control and submitting to someone else's guidance whether or not I understand what's going on, because it isn't the setting that I trust, it's the person. That's not easy...at least not to me or anyone else that I know of. It's yet another way in which I need to die to self and trust that God both has my best interests at heart and knows which turns to take to get me there. He is disciplining me through these hard circumstances to learn to trust Him more and more - disciplining unto deeper intimacy, which is what I asked Him for in the first place. It doesn't make this loss hurt any less, but it does mean that I can truly stand firm in the fact that I trust God through this situation, just as I have in good times and bad. I trust that He wants to bless me and that this isn't a punishment, it's just a different opportunity than I expected.
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ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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