--1Peter 5:6
God has been working on me at such a rapid pace lately, I sometimes feel like I can't keep up! It seems like I can go weeks rushing around and its all pretty much a blur and then all of the sudden it's like God just reaches down from heaven and puts his mighty hand on my head and I am suddenly stopped in my tracks, totally consumed by him and what he is showing me. And then it all makes sense again- my focus aligns and I begin to see what He has been up to in my life.
Last week in the midst of my "busywork" I noticed several books lying around the house that I haven't finished reading yet. (I'm pretty good at starting them but for whatever reason, they usually end up on the coffee table, the bedside table, or the kitchen counter, unfinished.) I spent a few minutes thinking about why I can't seem to finish anything I start and then moved on to the next thought. Then yesterday, in the midst of rushing out the door, my eyes breezed over one of those unfinished books. I grabbed one and shoved it in my purse thinking maybe I could try to read it later on in the carpool lane. At least I wouldn't be wasting time as I waited in line at the school. I hurried the girls off to the sitter, hustled them up to the front door, rushed through the goodbye kisses and hugs, and hopped back into my car ready to speed off to work...and then I realized that I was about 30 minutes early! lol. That never happens to me. Never. Taking advantage of the bonus time, I picked up that unfinshed book and God began to move.
I read about a woman who was in a season in her life where things seemed confusing and complicated…painful even. She said that when she tried to understand this season in her life, the word "confound" kept coming to her heart. The Lord eventually showed her that she was like a wild horse, confounded by its own disobedience. When a wild horse needs to be tamed, the owner will confound it by making it do the opposite of everything it so naturally wants to do- "It wants to go right; you pull it left. It wants to run; you make it stop. It wants to stop; you make it run." The owner has to break the horse of its own will, otherwise the horse is useless to its master. God does the same thing to us. He needs to break us of our own will so that we can be obedient to His will. And maybe some of us, like me, are just in that season of being broken by God in certain areas of our lives.
As I read, I realized that when I keep trying to go in my own direction, God has to confound me, over and over, breaking my selfish will so that I can be of use to him. And oh how I want to be used by him! I don't think my heart could want for anything more…even though my heart sometimes follows my will instead of its Lord! I guess I've had to learn the hard way that there is a difference between what my heart wants and what God wants for my heart. I have to be willing to receive his direction, willing to let him lead me, willing to trust him.
And so, I guess the end of the story is that I went from rushing around, worried, totally consumed and too busy to even really acknowledge the Lord- to having him just stop me in my tracks and deliver a message so powerful to me that I sat in my car and cried out to him. Sometimes we just have to give it all back to him right there in the parking lot. We have to hand over our fears, broken hearts, guilt, worries, and yes, even our selfish wills and we have to trust him enough to let him do whatever he wants with it all.
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