A new year has dawned. With everything new that comes, it is always in our best interest to pause and look back on the old. But only for an instant, for if you linger in the past for very long, you begin to live there and then before you know it, another year has passed and there has been no great strides made for change or betterment. So for a moment I pause to look at the past 12 months.
In 2014 I heard in my heart that the Lord was asking me to quit my job and just be still. But I did not. I chose to still work and in the process my health began to fail, so much so that I was in constant pain. For two years I struggled to maintain a balance in my life, but failing miserably.
At the beginning of 2016, I kept hearing from the Lord "Be still and know that I am God." Everywhere I looked that scripture showed up. So much so I begin to think that the Lord was really serious in this directive for me. At about the time I began to sense in my spirit that I was at a crossroads. And it was an urgency to choose to trust in the Lord with all of my heart and not to try to understand or have a back up plan, (as all control freaks, like me have).
The crossroads of complete and utter trust in the Lord or trust in myself and my abilities. When I looked at the choice before me-- one scared me to death and the other choice while I was familiar with, had brought to me nothing but frustration, anger, depression, and failure. The real struggle here was actually surrendering to God and His will or try to understand my life from my perspective and my emotion. So I chose trust. I quit my job even though it made no sense at all, and set about being still like God had asked me to be. Yeah. Right. Being still means a whole lot more than just reading your Bible and praying. Over the past year I have believed that I was being still just like I was being asked to do. This is what being still looked like for me: worry about bills. Having enough money to buy what we need. Anxiety about the future and how we were going to live. Worry about being homeless. Worry that I will not be able to go to Japan to see DJ when I need to go. Worrying that I have not done enough in the service of my Lord Jesus, and that this being still gig was making me lazy. These are just a few of the worries. Then I realized even though physically I was not doing anything, mentally and emotionally I was not being obedient to God's directive to me. At this point I cried out to God for the answer of how to be still and He led me to passage that has always helped me when I didn't understand what was going on in my life. This passage has been the bedrock of my faith: Proverbs 3:5,6: TRUST in the Lord with ALL of your heart and lean not unto YOUR own understanding. In all of YOUR ways, ACKNOWLEDGE Him and He shall direct your paths.
This was an aha moment for me. I realized I was being obedient to what I believed the Lord had called me to do and if I was in obedience than God will take care of all I need. There was a battle for my soul for me to TRUST and Surrender to Him everything I am and have and try not to have it all figured out. The Battle. Some days I win, and I have failed on other days (by getting a job or 2, knowing full well I was not suppose to and then having to quit them) but I guess the fact that I sit here still unemployed and waiting gives proof to myself , that trusting what the Lord has for me is way better than anything I can figure out for myself.
As I write this, God has been faithful to me. I am not homeless, I have not gone without a meal, and I am trusting that He is going to provide a way for me to go and see DJ in July to see him graduate college and to meet my new grandchild.
I am not writing this to give kudos to myself, for I surely know my failure in this battle of being still and trusting but to encourage anyone who has been directed by the Lord to do something or give up something, that while it is a very scary prospect, just know that the Lord is faithful and He rewards those who are obedient to what He has called them to do. Is it going to be easy? No way, but dying to self is always painful and fearful but the rewards are more than you can imagine.
