It wasn’t that long ago that God closed a door in my life I was sure I was going to walk through. I thought in order to fulfill my calling I needed to do this thing I was adamant about doing. Turns out, I was wrong. It was painful at the time. I was at a point where I was desperate to find my passion and my calling. I tried to force a lot of things so I could find meaning and purpose instead of recognizing that I already had it. I had it because Christ had given it me, I just didn’t see it at the time.
You see, there is a very human desire in all of us to feel significant or even more than that, to feel important. I didn’t feel either of those. I was depressed, lonely and bored most of the time. It was at this time I cried out in desperation to the Lord. Don’t ask me why it takes us falling to our knees, at the end of our ropes before we recognize the desperate need we have every day, to be connected to something so much bigger than ourselves, to know that our plan is much smaller than His plan and that if we surrender our tight hold on the things we think we can control maybe, just maybe, He will do something far greater than we could have imagined for ourselves.
*Deep Breath*
There are things I know to be true about God and His character, things like: He cares about me … He listens to me … He answers me, albeit in His timeline… He is faithful even when I am not … He is true … He is merciful …and He is loving. I also know these things about God do not depend on me, my behavior, my actions, or my thoughts. God is a God who works independently from a creation that is completely dependent upon Him. And you know when we recognize that the most? In the desperate moments, in the dark and quiet moments, in the moments we let ourselves be still enough to let the pain of life wash over us.
I have a few challenging questions:
What does it take until you are willing to get on your knees and pray in desperation? What does it take for you to recognize that you actually don’t control anything in life? How many of your relationships are broken because you couldn’t control what the other person thought of you, heard from you, or how they treated you or even harder to reconcile, how you treated them? How many situations have you botched because at the time you thought you could control them?
Here is the truth:
God is weaving a thread in each of our tapestries and if we take a moment to look back, we can catch glimpses or see broader pieces of where He was working even if we didn’t notice it at the time. In my short time on this earth, my tapestry is already full of times where I have been brought to my knees and once I am able to stand again, I am stronger for it, not because of something I could control, but because of all of the things that He could. In His timing. In His way. Most of the time I still stubbornly revert back to trying to control my life as though I never learned any lessons at all, but you know what? God still meets me there, faithfully, patiently and beautifully until I finally choose to surrender.
Let the words of David be comforting as he was fleeing from Saul for his life:
“Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!” -Psalm 57:1-3
