Sometimes I get down...I feel like with God running my life, everything seems to go wrong, or he lets me down or I, just plain and simple...don't like not having complete control over my life. I want to be the one making the shots, running the show…but you see, whenever I get into that mind set, something happens... my life suddenly feels worse then before, and I feel like crap...
Why?? That's the big question! Why do I feel this way? Why does God let this happen?? Why do all the struggles in my life feel that much worse when I'm not leaning on God?? Well, the answers in the question...I'm not leaning on God. My youth pastor, Norm, is a very wise man, and just the other day, I was talking to him about this... And he said something that stuck like glue on your hair. He was talking about Joshua and the Israelites’, and the promise land. Now the Israelites’ had to got through a lot of struggles to even get to the promise land and when they got there, the struggles didn't just stop. They had demons among them and those didn't go away either... they stayed too. Why… because God wanted to train the next generation how to fight. So God let those struggles stick with them, so the next generation could learn how to fight. In my case, I'm the next generation and I'm getting trained. We all know physical training is hard...push ups, sit ups, curl ups...all that good stuff. It can be painful, long and exhausting. It’s the same with Spiritual training. It can be painful, long and exhausting. But the end result in both is joy, pride, a sense of accomplishment, and yearning for more. I'm still in the training process and ya, its long but at the end of each day I know who my coach is and he never gives up on me! :) Not even when I feel like I want control over my life, when I want to be the one making the plans.
Now the next part will make more sense if I tell you this...In Venice, Italy, there's gondoliers. They're the guys who steer the boats and they usually are singing as they do it. They’re the ones that lead the boat along the water streets of Venice. Okay so, I was reading this book the other day and part of it impacted me... The main character is Leah. Now at the beginning of the book, she feels like she needs top be in control...with relationships, family, and her life. But things change. At the end of the book God speaks to her and what he spoke, also spoke to me too. It starts with the verse from Zephaniah 3:17: "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Then Leah said "I'm not the one supposed to sing." It’s like in her life she’s been the one in control, the one steering, even if she doesn't know which road to go down sometimes... But then she said "I'm not the one supposed to be singing, Jesus is." He's like the Gondoliers... He wants us to just rest in his pocket of grace. He will do all the steering and singing! We don't have to do anything to prove ourselves to him, we just rest and let him take the wheel and steer. He leads; we rest in his pocket of grace! It’s just amazing, we don't do the singing, and he’s the one singing over us!
So when I feel like I want to run my life and call the shots...I need to stop and let Jesus do the singing, I just have to rest. It’s the same with all of us, that’s the most amazing thing! His pocket of grace is never too small; it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Let God do the singing and he will lead you to things you could never imagine!
God Bless! ♥♥
