Peace and Perspective

That is what I am praying for these days.

It’s felt like a rough couple of months, maybe in particular a rough couple of weeks lately. I have realized I am an anxious person. That sounds silly to say. How could I not know that before? I always knew; I just liked to hide it and stuff it. Or rationalize that because everyone else is anxious too, I am really “normal” and don’t need to change this. Both ploys don’t work so well. In fact, it usually ends up keeping you up at night or waking you up early in the morning. Then the lack of sleep feeds into the craziness and makes everything spiral downward.

It’s been a time of internal transition for me. God wants to do something deeper. And as a somewhat mature Christian of many years, this should be a thing of joy for me. After all, it’s what I say I want, right? Growth and maturity so that I may continue to please the Father who loves me abundantly, so that I may walk in His will.

But He wants to go deeper than I want to go. He wants to go to scary places I would rather not be. He wants to bring up things I have tucked safely away in hopes of never seeing them again. He wants to address areas that I don’t want addressed.

It shakes me. It makes me want to try to control my surroundings even more. It makes me want to find security in my circumstances. And my circumstances, relatively, are good. But there is no peace in them because they are always changing.

Why is my first response to something new God is doing fear and running? He is like a surgeon wanting to cut the cancer out that is killing me, but I am too afraid of the knife to let Him. Why do I think it is all about the knife? The knife is simply changing circumstances that God wants to use in my life. I should not be concerned with the knife and wondering what it is all about – I should be concerned with the surgeon. Is he trained in this specific area? Is he dependable? What is his track record for good results? And I ask those things about my Surgeon. Is He faithful? Yes. Does He love me? Yes. Is He capable? Yes. Can I trust Him? Yes. Does He want the best for me, and does He know what that is? Yes and Yes. Will He give me what is good? Yes. Sometimes His good hurts. Sometimes His good doesn’t always mean answered prayers and happy endings. But can I trust Him even when I don’t understand? Yes. Has He proven Himself and His love to me? Yes, a million times over.

I want to trust Him with whatever knives He chooses to use in my life. I want to remember this is more about Him and who He is than what currently happens to be going on in my life (though He certainly cares about those things). This is the perspective I must hold tight to and this is the peace that I pray for. For you and for me.

Costs and Sacrifices

This morning I was thinking about how although salvation was offered freely to us at a great cost to God, it also costs us.

Don’t get me wrong. His salvation is offered to us completely free. We desperately need it and it can’t be earned. It cannot be manipulated so it is gotten. It is not about luck. It is not about works. It is freely offered to us simply by believing that Christ died in our place and paid the price for our sins. We can now walk in a restored relationship with our heavenly Father when we accept it. But if God’s salvation really takes hold of our hearts, it costs us.

It is something we really don’t like to talk about much. We would like to say how good God is and understand it in the way that we understand good. We would like to talk about how He blesses us, how He answers prayers, how He guides us. And that is all true. But His definition of good can be much different than ours. He does all things perfectly – the only one who does – but He does not always bless us (as we understand blessing) or always answer prayers (as we understand answers to prayers) or guide us (as we understand His guidance). He always does these things but not always in the way we want or expect Him to.

That is what I was thinking about today. The cost of following Him often means the death of my desires and dreams. He doesn’t require their death because He likes to see us hurt; He requires their death so that He can do deeper works in our heart. He calls us to make sacrifices, sacrifices we hoped we would never have to make. He tests our heart to refine us. Sometimes He gives those dreams back, refined for His purposes. Sometimes He gives us new dreams. Lately, it seems He just keeps asking and asking and asking for my desires and dreams. I think I give them to Him, I think I surrender, but then I realize I am just playing games with Him. I hope if I surrender, I will get my dreams back. I want gain without pain. I want to trust without the costs and sacrifices; I want to trust with the end result being my way, my dreams, my desires. That is not possible.

There are things I have learned in the death of my desires and dreams that molded and matured me in a way a happy, blissful life never would have. Walking with God costs us. It costs us yielding to His will instead of our own. It is hard but it is not bad. On the contrary, it brings the most beautiful blessings into our lives. It makes us more mature, trusting, faith filled people (if our hearts are teachable and surrendered to Him).

I know those things, have seen the effects in my life and still I have been struggling with this in adoption. I think the time should be now. I think I have been waiting long enough. I think I have learned enough, that my character has been refined enough. I get frustrated because I did not expect to be where I am in life. I have many blessings, but instead I get distracted and frustrated because I don’t have what I want.

But the truth is – as encouraging or discouraging as it can be at times - I have exactly what God has determined at this time I need. I have exactly what blessings He has determined I have at this time. I am not out of His hand. I have not been forgotten. In fact, during these hard times, I am always more aware of His tenderness and care for me than when everything is going good in life.

God knows what He is doing. He is faithful to care for us and to be present through our struggles, through our refining, through our sacrifices. He wants us most to want Him. He does care about our hearts. He cares about our sorrows and deep pain from the loss of a dream, temporary or permanent. He is a gracious and compassionate God. But following Him does have a cost. That cost is ultimately for our good. We may or may not see the good on this side of heaven. But we can trust the Father. We can know He has a plan for us, loves us, and will never forsake us. That doesn’t change the situation but it does draw me to where I need to be.