Nighttime… the most dangerous time for me. I lay awake for hours upon hours contemplating. My heart is so conflicted so often. I just got back from a retreat with the internship team for Neighborhood, it was an awesome time to further grow relationships with the rest of the team and also get some good ‘ole QT (quality time) with JC (Jesus Christ). No joke, we spent 4 hours straight both days of the two day retreat praying… alone… just us and God. What an insane time of self-examination with my Creator. Holy smokes, it was hard! I had to work through forgiveness, bitterness, pride, anger, control issues…. the list is endless. By hour number three I was running for the hills… or should I say creek to sit down and have a nice cry sesh. Goodness, I am so broken. My mind is on hyper speed trying to figure out what exactly God wants for my life. I wish He would write me a note or something so I could just know, wouldn’t it be nice if it worked like that? I feel so stuck and so torn between two lives. I want to be free, I want to move south, I want to lock myself in a room alone and play piano and sing for the rest of my life… BUT… I want to be a voice for my family downtown that cannot speak for themselves, I want to write a book, I want to travel the world, I want to live alongside my community… AHHHHHHHH!
Here I am… waiting for God, and learning a great deal about patience.
Isaiah 43:1-4
1But now thus says the LORD,he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,
peoples in exchange for your life.
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Again- John Foreman <<<Listen to song
Oh Lord, God of our Fathers
This day, let it be known
That you, Lord, are God of the present tense
Oh Lord, Father of history
This day, let it be known
That you, Lord, are present in a human event
I want what HE wants.
In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. [Pr. 16:9]
His will and your plan for your life, however different they may seem, work together in some supernatural way that we will never understand. I’ve had to proclaim this verse over and over in my life and know that HE is sovereign.
To be honest, the more I wrestle with God over this the more I start to wonder if the importance we place on what we are doing with our life is all just a clever deception from the enemy. Christ made it clear that life is not about WHAT we DO or WHERE we LIVE, it’s about WHO we LOVE, WHILE we LIVE [Mk 12:30-31]. Praise God that we can do that whatever our circumstances!
All this considered, you can rest in God’s peace that tonight, Johnna, God has directed your footsteps leading you to that very bed, in this very city, surrounded by the very people he’d have you love and there is no more perfect place for you to be.