Mom suggested it when I started taking care of Tutu (Hawaiian name for "Grandmother") on August 23rd and my fantastic "Heart to Heart" Bible study leader Teresa (check out her awesome creativity here ) has mentioned several times that I ought to be typing out this phase of journey.
Well, in what seems to be typical, I've waited until it seemed over. I wish now that I had been writing all along, it would be neat to announce in real time the things the Lord has done and is continuing to do, however, hindsight is 20-20 and hopefully taking this retrospectively will reveal how prevalent His hand has been...particularly when I did not see it in the moment.
As you follow along I'll do my best to be honest with you. Hold me accountable to the confession of my emotions, doubts, fears, questions, frustrations... because I want to be genuine with what the Lord is doing. Sometimes I wonder if the greater works are the things He shapes in my atmosphere or the reconditioning of my heart (I'm becoming increasingly sure it is my heart). I love that our God loves to care for us that intimately...and I am simultaneously terrified.
I was telling Mom yesterday that I'd realized how I wasn't trusting God with my heart, and then confessing the thought led that same heart to break! It is true when scripture says the the "troubles of the heart multiply" and that it declares in the night hours to "seek His face!" (Psalm 17, 27). Don't you find that at night, in the dark and lonely hours, your heart seems most distressed? That time that the Lord intended for rest becomes clouded and confusing. And how appropriate that the physical darkness matches desperation for the Light.
Yesterday I recommitted my heart to the Lord. I know this sounds like something you do just once a summer at church camp, but I think it is something I need to do daily. In just the course of a day our hearts have so much of the dirt and grime of the world to trek through that a lot of it sticks. We become weighed down by both our own choices and disappointments and the by-blows of choices of others. I like what Job 11:13-18 has to say, here I am putting it in my own words:
"If you will reserve your heart for Him and reach open hands to Him, that releasing of agenda about your own "kingdom" and the banishing of the evil encamped around you will grant the confidence to lift your face, the confidence to look at your Father with not inadequacy but heirship. You will rise bravely and steadily, you will have no reason to fear. Your distress you will not remember, you will know it only as 'waters gone by'. Life will be more radiant than full sunshine, and the darkness will become a sunrise. You will be hedged in, because you have hope you will see the storm around you while taking respite in the fort of the the Lord. "
I love that He makes "life brighter than noonday" and turns the "darkness into morning." In my dark hours the Lord says "let there be light!" and where I thought there was nothing but the darkness that light exposes a magnificent creation, an unfolding of purpose, a pathway cleared of the foliage that I can follow surely with Him.
Back to the conversation with Mom yesterday; I realized how much the wisdom God gives is meant to be used. Silly isn't it? If you know me you've maybe heard me mention James 1 where it says that the Lord gives "wisdom to all, without finding fault," or tell you that it is wisdom God promises, not answers. You know what wisdom is? Thanks to freedictionary.com it is "1. The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight." or 2. enlightenment. "
Enlightenment. How perfect for the verses from Job. Wisdom is all of the sudden seeing, then not merely seeing but taking the right action.
I think our walks with God are like a mountain range. You stand on the top of one peak declaring "Wow! Look from whence I've come!" and hear the echoes of that joy resound from every rock, crevice, precipice and valley overcome. Then, infused with the confidence of what you've just looked back upon, you ask boldly "Lord! Show me more! Lead me! You are so good! So mighty! So great! I'll follow you! Teach me more!" and gently the Lord turns you to recollect the peak you are on is merely one height of a mountain range... and that next height is taller. You yearn to be there, to see more feel more experience more of how great God is but that means you've got to leave the mountain top. You're going to have to leave the clear view and traverse down through a fog and what unknowns it cloaks, trust again, lean on Him again take your rest in Him all the way to that next new height. It doesn't mean you won't experience peaks and glimpses on the way, but when we ask God to take us higher He says "alright, but that means you'll have to humble yourself enough to step down."
You know, God doesn't force us to grow though. Every peak has at least a little bit of it that's a plateau, and I'm a person that loves the plateau. I will travel every inch of it, camp on it, memorize it, and enjoy it thinking I'm quite comfortable and don't want to move on. And God will let me do that at least for a little while but He has made us to desire more. Eventually it seems that as great as that little area is it has become too small and familiar, then I doubt my contentedness and belief of God's greatness but if you do this too don't!
Know those places and commit them to memory because you'll need that picture to be encouraged on your next climb. Our God is the greatest and one of my favorite things about the Lord is that we can have high expectations of Him and He will exceed them! We can never think too highly of our God!
John 16 says that "Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."
This refers to the measure of the Holy Spirit that the Lord wants to give us, the indwelling strength He desires us to have to take on climb.
In James 4 we're told that we "Have not because we ask not" or that we do not have what we ask because we "ask with wrong motive". If we "come near to God" He will come near to us. If we "resist the devil" he will flee from us... flee, I like that word. It means to "run away to escape" imagine that! With the power of the Holy Spirit the devil will want to get away from us!
"Humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up". Mountain ranges aren't so tough when you're being carried and lifted, you just gotta be willing to relinquish your own power and perch on Christ's.
I like promises, I pray you can cling to these as I am. See you along the journey, remember, God will.
Allison
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