Two-Month Trial
Looking back, I can 100% see why God didn’t allow me to
open my eyes to what He had planned for me. I can honestly say, beyond a shadow
of a doubt, that if I would have known what was on the horizon, I would have
run the opposite way…very, very quickly. God didn’t open my eyes to Italy until after
I arrived, and even then He allowed me to see through the lens with squinty
eyes and blurred vision. My eyes
are open yet limited. Praise God in the Heavenly realms, He knows best. So often in unknown places we subject ourselves to stumbling, failure, and awkwardness. As a
self proclaimed “runner,” not necessarily in the working out sense, but in the
run away from everything that is uncomfortable sense, God knew better than to
tell me what was coming. I feel as if I was sleep-walking into Italy with my
eyes closed being guided solely by Him, and awoke to find uncertainty, unknown,
uneasiness, and every other “un” word out there. Yet into this gap of uncharted
territory, God spoke.
He spoke.
I heard because I could finally listen without distraction.
When God says He wants all of us, don’t be surprised when
He manages to get you all to Himself.
God spoke truth, “I will lead you to the wilderness.” Yes, yes I would
say this is most definitely a wilderness. A beautiful wilderness rooted in rich
history, and just as the trees in the far-most corners of a wilderness, these
roads I walk have thousands of years of stories to tell. People we read about
in the Bible and history books lived and died in this very city. This city is
my miracle in the wilderness.
We trust in faith the miracles that we plan for, but where
is our trust in the miracles we don’t plan? We believe God to give us
immeasurably more in the measured out details we have planned for ourselves.
But when God gives us more than we can measure, how do we handle it? So often,
we reject it because we are incapable of trusting beyond limitations. If we
allow this fear to debilitate our walk, we are just a body stumbling through
life.
What if Paul, who was miraculously called by God to preach
this good news, was too afraid or limited God on how he trusted Him? I am
certain I would not have been standing in his Basilica looking at his grave.
World changers don’t conform, they reform.
Paul, in chains wrote, “Now to HIM who is ABLE to do
immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.” I don’t believe that Paul
would have expected to be in prison for much of him ministry, but He didn’t
question God’s purpose. Why? I believe Paul knew that no matter the prison or
chains He was held in, God holds no limitations. I don’t think we expect to be in chains for the gospel when
we ask God to give us immeasurably more, but what if He does? What if His
immeasurably more looks immeasurably less by the world’s standards? What if our
bank account holds less than the average person? What if the life we planned
when we were 15 looks completely different now that we are in our 20’s? God has
taken so many things away, to make me understand the beauty of traveling light.
We may not have much, but that gives us the freedom to open our hands and hold
out our cup for God to overflow with His spirit. He yearns for our whole self;
He walks us steady on the path of complete dependence. Free of burden, sinking
in grace, He calls us to live lives that don’t waver in adversity.
God spoke, “I will lead you to the wilderness” but He
didn’t stop there. He continued with “and speak tenderly to you.” “I will
refine you in the fire.” This two-month trail is the beginning of something
still unknown to me. There is pruning, and fire, and wilderness, yet there is
Jesus. I may not know what I have gotten myself into, but I have never been
more confident of the strength of my Savior.
So, two months in…I know so little, yet the borders of my
trust and the walls around my heart have slowly begun to fade.
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