I know it’s probably irritating to have so many links to the same site, but I learn so many things. Today it hit home to the heart of my mommy-ness (Read the original post by Skip Moen here). One of the biggest struggles that I find myself in is fearing for my children’s safety. I could imagine horrible situations and try to figure out how I’d get them out of it (it’s like that game or the TV show where it explained how to get out of these life-threatening situations). And then I read about a woman whose daughter taught her a valuable lesson – God has numbered my days, as He numbers the hairs on my head. He knows each one of them (and all the variations of them). He also loves my children. One of the hardest things I have to do is to stop holding on to them so tightly and fearing for their future. It seems like a daily thing that I have to release them back (metaphorically) into God’s care. Granted He always has them, but in my tendency to want to control the possible chaos in their lives (how very Greek of me), binding them tighter and tighter is the opposite direction from that in which I want to go. This commentary reminds me , again, that binding my children tighter to me won’t make them safer or more mine. Rather, stretching out my hand, cutting the bonds, and releasing them to His protection and care is the ultimate goal and the ultimate need. I am still a steward for my children, but I can no more protect them than I can fly (although I think my son might figure out how to do that… he’s certainly trying). Looking at this verse through the perspective of the verbs, I can more deeply understand what YHWH was asking of Abraham. Did Abraham understand that this was a test of his willingness to trust God’s plan and choose His path rather than the path that he could imagine, the one with Isaac? Does it matter? Do first, then if He wants He’ll explain. Sometimes it’s the doing without understanding, the choosing to walk the unknown, to let go, out of faith and out of love, that is the whole point of the test.
Some days I feel like that’s so true. No matter what I do to make something turn out the way I hope it will, ultimately my plans are foiled. It seems like lately I’ve been learning that no matter how hard I try, it’s not enough. Or at least it doesn’t seem to be enough. Isn’t that what God wants though? His purpose is important but He’s primarily interested in the journey – how I get there. I won’t ever know the destination, but it’s how I get there that causes me to grow. So, lately I’ve been learning a lot about trust. The last few days have been especially difficult. Not so much difficult to believe that God has a purpose and that He’s got it all covered, but I struggle with thinking about things too much. I have a tendency to run things over and over and over in my head. It drives me nuts! I think it’s called worry. This is especially true when I feel like I’ve hurt someone or been misunderstood in my intentions. In my heart I know that this is in God’s hands, too, and it’s not a surprise. But it’s really hard to turn off my brain. I’m learning to trust Him with financial issues more than ever. Sometimes it seems counter-intuitive, that when we have so little and when we don’t know when more will come, it’s then that I want to give the most and when I realize how much God is in control (and how little control I have). I begin to see that living now and trusting God for then is a part of the process. Skip made an interesting point on an mp3 I listened to – that no matter what way I turn, the future is always behind me (I can’t see the back of my head) – think of the rowboat analogy (we’re rowing in a river of time, but to row forward we have to face backwards). The main thing I struggle with here, is how do I know I’ve aligned myself properly with what God’s done in the past, so that I am headed in the right direction? In Hebrew it’s about the movement, and even waiting is an active verb. So my question is, if I’m supposed to keep moving while I wait, how do I do that? When God called Abraham out of Ur, He didn’t give him directions to the next stop. He told him to go to a place “I will show you.” So did Abraham just pick a random direction and start walking? That’s the implication. But how does faith like that translate into my life today? What if I’m walking in the total wrong direction to get wherever God wants me to go? Or maybe, it’s not so much that God has a physical destination in mind. Maybe no matter what direction I go He is there and will use the journey and the wandering to make me more like Him. Maybe God didn’t have a final destination for Abraham. Maybe it was all about the fact that Abraham went. And in going, God was able to mold Him character. Anyway, that was a rather long bit of rambling. Such have been my thoughts lately – disorganized and a bit of a shambles. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. Until then I will walk in the path I am on and trust that if I come to a dead end sign, there’s another path branching off that I will be following next. Blessings and peace!
Abraham. We think of him as the “Father of Faith”. A righteous man. A man after God’s heart. A man to whom was promised a nation. A father who trusted God so completely that he was willing to sacrifice his son. Thinking of Abraham this way is kind of dangerous. It paints a picture of a saint who did everything right. He blindly followed God out of his homeland. He was willing to give up Isaac because God asked him to. It’s so easy to picture him in the desert staring at the skies while God promises to make him into a great nation. It makes me believe that God used him because he was a righteous man. But Abraham has another lesson that I learned today. I was reading an article by Skip Moen (oh, stop your groaning). It was about faith and it talked about Abraham. But about half way through it I was struck by the realization that my thinking was completely wrong in this area. It has nothing to do with words or interpretation. It has everything to do with perfection. I’ve always thought (whether consciously or not) that since I’ve made so many mistakes in my life that God must be on his second or third best plan for my life. When I made those big mistakes and those things happened way back right after college, it must have derailed whatever plan He had for me so that now I’m off course and headed to the next best thing. I can’t receive His perfect promised plan because I’ve made so many mistakes. Does anyone else feel that way? And then I remember the rest of Abraham’s life (thanks to the article). He didn’t trust God, so he told Pharoah that his wife was his sister. Twice. He agreed to sleep with another woman in order to “help” God accomplish His plan. He stood by and let Sarah send his son off into the desert to die. Abraham made a lot of mistakes. And they were some pretty big mistakes. But here’s the part that is amazing to me: No matter what mistake Abraham made, God’s promise to him never changed. When Abraham let Pharoah try to marry his wife, God didn’t say, “Oh well, too bad for you. You don’t get my promise anymore. You messed that up so you’ll have to have something else.” When Abraham said yes to sleeping with Hagar to try and get her pregnant, God didn’t roll his eyes and sigh, “Abe, you’re on plan three now. Keep messing up and you won’t get anything good!” Even when Abraham made some huge mistakes (like me), God continued to bless him and kept His promise to him by giving him Isaac when Sarah was 90-years-old! So, it suddenly hit me that even though I’ve made mistakes (okay, lots of mistakes), that doesn’t mean that God has chucked His original plans for me into the trash. My mistakes don’t mess up God’s plans. Sure, they create a lot of extra baggage that I have to lug around on my trip (or really, I give it to God to lug around, but since He’s so big it’s not very heavy for Him). But they don’t stop God in His tracks and divert me to plan B or plan C. My mistakes don’t surprise God either. He knew me before He made me. He loved me before He made me. He loved me before time began, before there was light or dark, and before He even started creation. A few (albeit large) mistakes don’t throw Him off, don’t disappoint Him so much that He takes away the perfect plan He has for me. I’m going to say it again, in case you didn’t get it: My mistakes don’t mess up God’s plan. He doesn’t take away the promise just because I sin. I have consequences for my actions that affect my life, for sure. But just like Abraham became the father of the nation Israel, despite his rather large mistakes, God will continue to work my life for His glory into whatever His BEST (not second or third best) plan always has been. And that’s REALLY awesome!