This week, I finished the honeymoon period of GMS. As week six began, a wave of disappointment began to take over. I started looking over the past couple of weeks, and became angry because my expectations had not been fulfilled. But these very expectations revealed to me yet again, that I have been trying to interfere with God's plan for me.
It is week six of nine. I am jobless. I have a lot of free time. I have no schedule. All of which are the exact opposites of what I came in expecting. I was supposed to come into the summer and hit the ground running. I wanted to go a thousand miles an hour, just like I had been going for the past couple of years.
And as door after door after door has been closed this summer, I've been egging myself to keep going.
This week, I paused to think about how I was feeling, because I knew I was feeling something, and whatever it was it wasn't good. And it hit me really hard, and repetitively, that like in every other case, I had been running when God had been calling me to wait. And for the first time in two years I stopped to really listen. I've been receiving all of this material recently, and I've been checking it into my brain, but I've gotten to the point where I need to figure it out in my heart, because I have one of those too.
And so yesterday I sat and processed, and as hard and overwhelming as it was, I delighted in knowing that God was with me and that He is providing time for me to focus on Him. You see, I've been so dreadfully afraid of being inefficient and lazy, that I've failed yet again, to see that when things work out, it is not because of anything I did. And when things don't work out how I expect them to, it's because they're working out how God intended them to.
And it's been really hard to trust that this is God's intention. For me to have no financial security, no regimented schedule, and all the time in the world to focus on Him. To rest and hide myself in Him.
Yesterday, I was directed to read Deuteronomy 8. It is a passage where God is telling the Israelites that He has led them through the desert for forty years, and that it is He who has allowed them to hunger (all the while sustaining them with manna), so that when they reach the land of milk and honey, they can acknowledge that it is God who brought them there.
Verse 2 says, "And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty yeas in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not."
God has been humbling me, testing me, directing my heart back to the Truth, that He is everything. That my focus isn't to worry about money, or to commit every minute of my life to very specific tasks.
I've been realizing that deep down, the longing of my heart is the completion, the closure, and the unity of being with God. Whether it's disguised through longings for family, relationships, friendships, or anything else. At the end of the day, what I want is the salvation that only Jesus paid for. That only Jesus can fulfill me with, because He is God and He will not fail.
It is not a matter of me relinquishing control, as I wince in fear.
Psalms 27:14 says, " I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!"
Another translations says, "I would have lost hope, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
So it's not just a matter of giving up control, it is the searching of my heart to accept that Jesus is my Lord. That Jesus is all the salvation that He says He is, and complete belief that He is working in the land of the living, right now. Unlike Satan, God has control not only of heavenly things, but of things on earth as well, and He cannot wait for me to see the hope of His power and sovereignty.
And so as I leave the honeymoon stage, I feel myself traveling into unknown territory. However, God says that He makes the path smooth (Ps. 27:11). I don't think that necessarily means that things are easy, but that even when things are hard, God makes them exactly what we need, and His strength helps us bare it.
In Mark 10, Jesus asks the blind man: "What do you want Me to do for you?"
I am still $1319.43 away from paying for GMS. That is an overwhelming amount for a college student used to making $20 last a month. But I am confident in this: I am where Jesus wants me to be, and by His power alone, those $1319.43 will be paid.
This does not mean that I have given up on a job or a schedule, because God's provision extends itself to renewed determination. But I am committing this to Him, and am praying that He helps me honor the time that He has given me to process more and more of Him, and to extend His love and faithfulness to the Burlington community.
I cannot thank you enough for your prayers and support. I ask that you would continue to pray for me, for this city, and just to praise God for His ability to work here among us in spite of sin and Satan.
If you feel led to, please prayerfully consider donating to my fundraising for GMS. You can donate directly at: https://donor.navigators.org/dp/donate/controller.cfm?action=showDonation&staffID=23820717
