Come now, you who say "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever know the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
James 4
Lately I've been sighing an awful lot. I've been feeling trapped, in a way. Not in a very dramatic way- kind of a soft trap. Like I'm pinned under a bunch of pillows.
Alright, coming back to the point.
I've felt trapped in the area of making decisions. I am a people pleaser at heart. I want to prioritize pleasing God, not man, but I often fall into the pit of pleasing man. I overthink and then regret, and I am sometimes fearful to make even small decisions because the consequence of receiving someone's negative opinion seems to big a risk. So, sometimes, I simply don't make decisions. I sort of do, but really I decide 'no' and just stay put. It's the fear that any movement will cause some sort of avalanche.
Before I did it with dating, and now I am tempted to do it in job searching.
I even do it with the ocean...any body of water, really. I sit on the side, thinking about how I won't like it, how it's scary. I convince myself the option isn't really an option, as my fears become the louder voice. But when I'm in it, I can do it. I swam in the ocean a couple weeks ago and, once I was in, I loved it. Sitting on the edge, though, I could barely bring myself to consider it.
God is sooo good to draw me back to the truth that He delights in me regardless of my failures, my past (poor) decisions, and my struggle with decision making. Sometimes I even tend to overthink His opinion of me, thinking that I need to figure out the best choice of action before taking a step. But does He not ask for our faith?
"He will command His angels to guard you in all your ways"
Psalm 91
^That Psalm made its way into my very heart when a friend of mine was fighting suicide. I found so much peace in praying through that chapter, and in reading the very faith of the Psalmist. Yet today, with very small decisions, my faith is weak. Thank goodness its all about what my faith is in and not how strong my faith is. He is strong. And He is still commanding angels.
While reading this week, I found out that obedience comes from a Latin root word meaning 'to listen'. I love that. Even in obeying God, my call is to listen to His voice, not to figure things out on my own and hope I'm not doing the 'wrong' thing.
He wants my listening ear as much as He wants to hear my voice, calling out with all my questions. He wants to see me take a step and then redirect me when needed, or hold out a hand to guide.
To end this random commentary on the past few days, I'd love to share this passage which draws yet another one of our senses into the picture:
"And he made from one man every nation mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us."
Acts 17
Yes, I need to be listening. I need to speak to Him. But even when its dark, and I'm not sure if I can see the way, I can feel my way toward Him. And I can trust His ability to redirect me. He's not far from me. He has determined my dwelling place.
Even Jonah, who ran in the opposite direction, was not beyond God's reach- He redirected him. But when we sit still, we just aren't going anywhere. (Obvious, right?) What I mean is: when I sit still, He can't exactly 'redirect' me. There's no direction in the first place.
So here's to feeling my way.
"Jesus will meet you wherever you are, and he will help you. He is not intimidated by past failures, broken promises, or wounds. He will make sense out of your brokenness. But he can only begin to be the Lord of your life today- not next Monday or next month but now."
~Out of the Saltshaker
