I wrote a blog a few days ago and saved it on my computer so I could mull it over a little before I posted it. I wrote it while I was frustrated and emotional, so I wanted to make sure it was speaking the right things. I’m not gonna post it. I think a lot of it was issues manifesting themselves incorrectly.
But I will use some stuff from it, because what I was talking about was truth, it was just said in the wrong way. So Anyways….
God has been doing so many new things in me and teaching me things I didn’t expect to learn yet. It’s great stuff, but I’m being fought a lot too. Like I said in a previous post, when the devil sees you coming into something that God has for you, he’s going to fight you as hard as he can. I talked to a friend lastnight who was discouraged about the awesome things God is doing in her life, because satan had gotten to her head. And it excited me, because that means the devil is fighting her over something… meaning she’s doing something right! How awesome.
One thing He’s been teaching me is the art of trusting even though there’s lack of knowledge in us.
Your head may not understand, but your heart was MADE to trust God, and, though it’s an extremely conflicting thing – to have your head and you heart warring with emotions – it’s so cool, because, when you experience a peace inside your heart that your mind, reason, logic, etc. don’t understand, it means you’re experiencing God. You’re experience a glimpse of what you were made for. We may not even realize it – it took me a long time to be able to sense it myself – but when we experience things that make our head go ‘tilt’, our spirits rejoice, because, thank God, we’re stepping into a type of communion with God that is so out of this world [no pun intended :)], it’s beyond this natural realm we see!
Anyway again…
He’s been bringing me back to Jeremiah 13 over and over again, when He tells Jeremiah to go buy a belt and wrap it around his waist and don’t let it touch water…
What would it be like if God asked you to buy a pair of shorts, put ‘em on and don’t get ‘em wet…without telling you why? Would you be willing to do it?
God goes through many different steps of telling Jeremiah what to do with the belt, and only telling him ONE step at a time. So after God has already told him 1. buy a belt. 2. don’t let a touch water. 3. go to the river. And 4. bury it in a rock crevice. verse 6 says “many days later, God spoke to him…”
How’d you feel if God told you to do these things that seemed crazy to you, and then was silent ‘…for many days’ before He told you why He had you do these things?
#1 – God didn’t forget about Jeremiah, though He was silent.
Sometimes in life, we have to trust God hasn’t dropped the ball with us, and just wait for instruction.
#2 - the timing of all this was crucial to what happened next…
God told Jeremiah to go get the belt from the rock crevice, so he did. When he found it, it was “ruined and completely useless”.
Sometimes, we have to sit and wait, because, whether God is allowing time for your shorts to get ruined, or something else to fall into place, He needs patience from us.
I’m a go-getter. I don’t like patience.
Or I guess I don’t like situations that require patience.
I don’t like waiting.
I don’t like not knowing.
I’m a mess.
But Romans 8:25 says “If we look forward to something, we must wait patiently AND confidently” … In your patience, be confident that God will come through for you.
So, after all this.. after God told him to buy a belt, then don’t let it touch water, then go bury it, then sit there with no explanation for who knows how long, then go dig it up again…. Verse 8 says “Then the word of God came to me”… and God told him why He asked these things of Jeremiah and what would happen.
Sometimes I complain when things don’t happen on my time table in life. I feel I’m following God, I want what He wants for me, and I’m [theoretically :)] willing to do whatever it is. But it’s the time aspect that always gets me. Thing don’t come fast enough. I always want to be on the frontline of things, but sometimes we have things to learn first. Sometimes, we think we’re ready, but we’re not just yet.
God knows that, if I knew steps 5 and 6, 1-4 would get left in the dust, and I’d get down the road and realize I missed something somewhere. Maybe Jeremiah was like this too, because there ARE stories, like in Jeremiah 29:5-7, when He gives the priests and prophets from the exiles step-by-step instructions for their lives up front.
Do this, do that, be this and go here and you will prosper. Awesome, but I would be dangerous with such things. He knows that. And maybe you wouldn’t be. I just know I would be.
When I had to leave Africa last year, my heart broke, and I couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t give me a peace about just STAYING there, though I had been invited to do so. I was angry when God told me I wasn’t meant to go to school just yet… Hearing the weight of the world’s words on you that ‘you have to get an education, it’s the only thing that will sustain you in the long run…’ and then having God say ‘not yet’…it’s hard, not to mention such things as financial provision for the future. How is ‘not yet’ supposed to pay the bills, right?
But God knows. He knows what you need. He knows what’s coming and He CARES about it.
After all, the reason for my anger and my nervousness concerning provision was because there’s something about God’s character that I’m not trusting. Something about His goodness that I’m not believing. I don’t feel like He knows what is best, and when He speaks to me and says go buy a pair of shorts and bury them and doesn’t tell me why first, I look at Him and keep walking because I don’t trust that He will bring something out of it.
I never mean to preach at anyone. It’s not my aim at all. I’m just sharing life… sharing the things I’ve learned in hopes that they’ll help someone else.
So if there’s anyone else dealing with similar things, know you’re not alone.
And if you’re dealing with the opposite – if you feel like you’ve been handed too much and you don’t know if you can take it – God will never give you something you can’t handle. You hear the phrase “I know He’ll never give me something I can’t handle, I just wish He didn’t trust me so much”… that’s true, I suppose, and kinda funny, but in reality, if He’s giving you something you don’t feel like you can handle, it’s because He wants you to take it to Him and ask for help. He says ‘in OUR weakness, HE is strong”.
Let Him help you.
Have hope today.
"The heart is capable of responding to things the mind can't yet perceive." - Bill Johnson.
