I have a Heavenly Father who, while being the Alpha and Omega, the creator of thunderstorms and mighty oaks, is also the master of great timing in the tiny lives of His followers.
I spent the last month anticipating and then mourning what I thought was a loss and a closed door. You read about this in my last two blog posts, so hopefully you’re up to speed on my mind and have read them so I don’t have to bore you with the details.
A few days ago I got a DM on Instagram from an online aquaintance, “Did you get an email from _ last week?” I had not. It had gone the way of the cyber-buffalo. She resent the missing missive. The email I thought would never come, that I was convinced I wasn’t chosen to receive, arrived, inviting me to spend nine days in London with a merry band of exceptional women. I went outside to show my husband, and could only shove the phone at him and burst into tears.
I realize there are a few reasons I get to be a part of this bibliophile company, and none of them have anything to do with what I deserve or what I’m capable of. God has a specific path for me. I have no idea the scope of it, or who it will impact or how it will impact me, but I do know that He’s being creative with it. Anything he’s mixed up in is designed to simultaneously make Him look good and do the work of love He wants accomplished on this beautiful, broken rock. The trifecta happens in that we get to go along for a ride that is designed to thrill us and make us fall for Him even more in a way that touches the specific heart and soul He’s given us. He’s in the business of rescuing his creation and then giving us quite the courtship while we linger in this life.
I used to think I wasn’t allowed to want anything or enjoy anything deeply because I wasn’t supposed to love anything more than God. While that is true in one sense, the key is not to feel desires or ambitions less, but to love and desire and trust God MORE. The more my relationship with Him grows, the more anything else naturally falls into place without lessening my enthusiasm for it. The difference is my need to find my contentment and joy in those things diminishes. My dependent addiction becomes a healthy enjoyment, without the nature of the activity or thing or person changing at all. If we can’t “lay our son on the altar” and raise the knife, and be completely content, even if he doesn’t stop the downward fall, whatever we are hanging on to will ruin us. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” can be “though I have to slay what I want, I will still trust Him.” When we get to this spot, freedom is standing with open arms. The weight of holding on in fear drops.
This London trip, with some women I admire and respect and find incredibly interesting, is only happening because my happiness and success does not depend on it, and it is ordered properly under my desire for God and His will, therefore instead of being an idol or distraction, it can become an incredible tool for God to use in my life, the lives of the other women going, and who knows who else. (Just read Esther for the full power of that phrase, “who knows”.) A few years ago, this would not be the case. I would have used it to make myself feel more important, or used it to try and prove my worth to people around me that I wanted to impress.
Only because God has gently been teaching me so much through one small, gracious, sometimes painful lesson at a time is this now a healthy, fruitful place for me to be now. The more He teaches me, the more I realize I will always fail and the more I have to learn. It’s very freeing to realize I only have to learn at God’s pace, not mine, or anyone else’s, and I will arrive in glory at a screeching halt, still missing pieces and stumbling over my words, and Jesus will be able to perfect the work He’s started, in no rush and in no panic that He ran out of time on me.
I used to be intimidated by the verses, “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future. Many are the plans of the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. What is desired in a man is steadfast love… the fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied…” (Provers 19:20-23), but I’ve now seen God slowly tune my heart to live with this mindset. I can never out-plan Him, and my ideas will never reach the scope and creativity and possibilities that He can dream up for the plans He wants to accomplish. The grace is that He doesn’t send an army of perfect, obedient, powerful angels to do His will, He lets ordinary humans in on pieces so we can get to enjoy the glory in pieces here on earth.
The more we abide, the more our heart is sanctified and changed to mirror His. The more we become like Him, the more we can trust the desires of our hearts, because He promises to give us the desires of our hearts. He gives us desires, so we WANT to do the things He wants us to do and look forward to it. Our Father delights in our delight.