Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

~Psalm 43:3~

When you’ve come through many trials and have begun to build yourself back up in Christ, sometimes you hit a point where you cannot help but be unsure of yourself.  From what I’m hearing in the teachings of my favorite evangelists and from what I’m experiencing in my own walk, it is a constant struggle to stay in His will and to do things in a way that glorifies Him.  The issue of insecurity seems to rear its head more often now than I noticed when I wasn’t walking with God.  It’s not the insecurity of thinking that no one likes you or wants to be friends with you; but the insecurity of knowing that those who love you just don’t completely understand who you are and that when they figure it out, they might not love you so much.  People develop a persona in their minds for those whom they care about and sometimes those personas don’t allow for the changes and growth that occur over the course of our lives.  Sometimes, people still see us the same way we were before we began to understand ourselves.  And so, the context for their love for us is not based on reality, but on what they want to see in us.  While we may be completely secure in who we are; it isn’t always possible to be secure in our relationships with others.  Sometimes, it’s a constant “wait and see” and that is enough to wear us out.     

Perhaps it is because what I am experiencing now is completely new to me and the way that I am trying to approach the situations in my life isn’t what I’m used to.  I’ve attempted to abandon the kneejerk reaction method for a more concentrated effort to see things from God’s perspective and to allow His love to work in all situations.  It’s not that I never feel frustration or anger; God knows that I still feel these things and that I often don’t react the way I should initially.  But it is with His help that I am able to come around to a better way of thinking more quickly these days.  It thankfully doesn’t take days for me to get it and I can get through whatever is going on if I just reach out in prayer and ask for His guidance.  The biggest problem I run into is wondering if others are understanding me when I say or do the things I say or do.  Almost in the sense that I’ve completely left them behind in my move toward making a better situation for myself.  This is where others begin to show you that they don’t approve or that they think you might not know what you are doing.  When they don’t get where you’re trying to go and it isn’t so much because you are wrong, but because maybe they don’t want to put that kind of time and energy into changing their own situation. 

In my notes, I’ve written that it often feels like I’m spending my time trying to reconcile the smallness of my life with the largeness of the problems He wants me to tackle.  I know that I am called to take action, but there are many days when I somehow don’t feel able or worthy of being given such responsibilities. But then I remember that He will never put more on us than what we can handle.  He is always there for us and knows the outcome of each and every thought, feeling and action before we even make a move.  He’s guiding my words right now even as I write this.  So, I recall that His strength is made perfect in my weakness and that it is the deliverance from what often confuses or distresses me that makes His will even greater in my life.  Ultimately, I have no control over what happens.  It’s already set and He already knows where I will falter and where I will fall completely.  But He also knows where I will stand up and take control and carry out His plan for my life.  And He never loses faith in me.  He watches and waits as I lose faith in myself and those around me, but He NEVER loses His faith in my ability to carry out what He has put me here to do.  The worst thing I can do is to give up and simply refuse to go forward for Him even if it means leaving everyone behind to make that move. 

I’m certain that there are some times in life where doing the right thing feels so very painful to us in our human skin that we can hardly bear the weight of our actions.  Like when we have to make a tough decision about someone or something and our hearts tell us not to press when God is telling us we should dig in deeper.  Or when there is something we need to let go of and we figure we can just hold onto it until it leaves us.  That it will be good enough just to let the thing feed on our spirit until it has had enough and then we can call on the Lord for strength when it has finally broken us or if we refuse to call on Him, we will also just disappear.  And the most terrifying thing of all, when we need to stop ourselves from pushing the issue and simply let God’s will direct what is happening for the time being.  How do we know the difference between when He wants us to take action and when He wants us to let Him work?  In Ecclesiastes 3:8, it says that there is, “A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.”  There is, in fact a method to the madness.  When we don’t understand why something is or isn’t happening, that’s when we need to draw even closer to Him and lean on His understanding.  We must let Him guide us to what we need and away from what we don’t need.  When we submit, the answers become clearer and things just have a way of falling into place.  We cannot be afraid of the pain that comes with uncertainty.  Our walk is uncertain all but the ultimate reward.  What we know is this; that when we take His hand, He will not lead us in the wrong direction.  It is the act of taking His hand that guarantees we will end up right where we need to be.

 
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:

~Psalm 37:5~

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