Renewed and Refreshed: Guided by God (day 6/7)

Renewed and Refreshed: Guided by God (day 6/7) - Blog # 32

Opening Prayer:

Dear God, we lift up this day to You. Please refresh us, cleanse us like cool waters, and bring wellsprings of life in our spirits. Lord, we know that You are the one who brings life, who brings hope, and all those who are thirsty will be given everlasting waters. God, those who hunger are full in You. God, give us the ability to seek Your will first. No matter our hopes, no matter our dreams, and no matter our circumstances. God, let us fix our eyes on You alone. God, let us believe in You alone to be the One who Guides the humble. Those who love You will never be put to shame.

In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.

Today’s word of the day: Whoa.

It’s a simple word that captures today’s blog and my personal amazement: whoa. God is whoa. God is exciting because He's a mystery. We can’t understand Him, and sometimes I hate that. I hate feeling like I’m out of control because I don’t trust in God to be:

All-Power
All-Knowing
All-Loving

I had a blog topic on discipline today, and I’ll possibly get back to it on a later day and time. I think today’s blog is to really emphasize how wondrous and unexpected life looks like when we follow Jesus. In one moment, Mary and Martha had been weeping their beloved brother’s death and the next he was walking himself out in the command of Jesus.

Today nothing special happened in a sense of my everyday routine, and my everyday routine has been kind of comatose. I decided to take a walk today, moved to not take my phone and walk/talk with Jesus, and finally take Angel outside. I was immediately struck by how brisk the air was, how the sun shined against the blue sky, and how the world was moving like clockwork as usual.

Everything seemed normal.

I think that’s how God likes to surprise us too. In the middle of the mundane day-to-day, we can encounter God. Immediately, I tell God about my grievances against Him and the situation I’m in. I’m distraught. I’m dramatic. You know the drill. I stop to pick up Angel’s #2 before I reach a park near my house, and that’s when I feel a fresher grief wash over me.

I’m reminded of how much has changed, and yet so much was the same too. I sat down on a bench, nothing on my mind, but just letting my thoughts wash over me. That’s when I think God spoke over me and shared with me a greater hope to come. The thing about hearing from God is you can never be sure for certain it’s God, but that’s faith too: trying to listen and sift through you, the world, Satan, and Jesus.

It gets easier with practice but never perfect.

I think God shared with me some insights and connections that had been forming in my mind, and He corrected me on some of my own issues and doubts. We talked like call and response, and I asked Him the purpose behind the madness unfolding before me. God explained to me that what’s confusing to us is clear to Him, and as He brought up point after point, I gained clarity too.

I saw how pieces were fitting together, and I saw the story unfolding. I let myself lose my resistance to listening, and I just absorbed what I felt the Holy Spirit shared with me. The thing about yesterday’s blog, having hope again and new dreams again is a waiting process too. We don’t suddenly conjure up new dreams or at least not prayerful, anointed ones.

God speaks how He wants to, when He wants to, and whenever He’d like. When it’s Him, though, you feel like all these thoughts aren’t you. At least not fully because you can tell yourself these same things with no peace, excitement, or confidence. Talking with God almost marinades you in this faith to hear and understand and it sinks into your heart.

The hard part about faith is letting it sink deeper, that’s why so many of us have such shallow faith (including me). We don’t let God sink faith deeper into us because we’re resistant, we don’t want to change, and we think we know better. I think I know better than God all the time, but grief shakes you. It’s like an earthquake for your identity and soul, suddenly the hard bedrock has cracks.

Before there was no place for soil or seeds to grow, but the trials of life will enlarge your capacity to carry faith in the cracks of your self-driven life. That’s when you lose the fight to do things your way, when you look around and see how helpless you are. “God, I need help. God, I need healing. God, I need faith.”

God loves needy people. God hears us in our desperation.

Jeremiah 29:12-13; "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

The thing about God is He might move your heart to do random things, but for some reason you just know it’s not ‘you’ or a random thought. You feel moved to go to a certain church service. You feel moved to message that person. You feel moved in a way that logic and reasoning cannot define, but it feels like you ‘should’ more than you could.

So, when I feel a ‘should’ moment come, I tell God that I feel like He’s telling me to do something, and I hope even if I heard wrong that He counts the faith behind it. Some of these ‘should’ moments have led to the places of greatest insight, intimacy, and miracles in my life. Sometimes nothing -- at least to my visible realm -- happens, and I don’t take that as a failure or loss, God knew in all my limited knowledge and understanding that I had thought He spoke and I wanted to believe and obey.

It’s so easy to say, “What happens if I’m wrong?” but never “What happens when I’m right?”

The Christian faith is much like this: we all have our best bet on how the world turns. Some say the earth is a floating rock, spinning in space, and we are some highly evolved monkeys. Some say we are a thought experiment by some aliens watching on their CV cameras. Some say we are made by a Triune God who saw the world in mayhem due to sin and sent His one and only Son to die and resurrect on their behalf so that whoever would believe in Him would do the same.

We’re all placing our bets. “What happens if you’re wrong, Grace? Isn’t this a waste of your life?”

I think doing whatever I want is a waste of my life. I’ve been enslaved to doing whatever I want. I am not ‘doing’ as I please, I have to obey my every whim and fancy. Do you ever have that moment where you’re like “I know I don’t want to be doing this, but I’m doing it” and it’s almost like an out-of-body experience? You call your ex. You say that mean thing to your mom. You can’t forgive that person even though you want to reconcile your relationship with them. You are out of control while being in control of your life.

I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone.

Romans 6:15-18

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Do you know that movie Ella Enchanted? Super good, you should totally watch it -- anyways, Ella is enslaved by a curse (this is obviously a fictional movie) to do whatever others tell her to do. Go to a dance. Be quiet. Sing. Kill the love of her life. We’re like that too before Jesus enters the picture, unable to resist and forced to obey except our masters are ourselves.

Yet, God in His mercy, the moment we believe in Jesus, unlocks the chains we’ve placed on ourselves and let’s us decide who we choose to follow: Him, this world, our families, our friends, ourselves (still), our goals, our sexuality, our hunger, or anything else. Now though, we have a choice. Before we couldn’t choose, but God made it so we are now able to pick obedience in Him.

It’s not a waste of my life because I am constantly surrounded by God’s presence. I am loved. I am comforted. I am accepted. I am known. I know peace. I know joy. I know goodness. I know forgiveness. I know faith. I know hope. I know Jesus.

Okay, back to the main plot (?). I guess it’s easy to say what happens if I’m wrong about what God tells me, well, God can easily course correct if I’m being prayerful and obedient and not actively sinning or rejecting Him. God can say, “I know you thought I wanted you to go to optometry school, but I’m closing that door.”

I really do feel like God was the one who opened optometry as one of the best choices for me, it was something I sought after, and it was a dream I had from God that I couldn’t control the circumstances over. “But Grace, you’re the one who studied. You’re the one who applied for programs. You’re the one who emailed to get shadowing positions. You-”

And God said yes! God allowed me to enter those places. God opened doors, I just knocked. We think if we knock we did all the work. We think that all of our fortunes and failures are by our hands, when the hand of God is constantly working. You don’t think there were opportunities God closed for me? That I couldn’t even open if I tried. God said yes -- but He also said, you don’t have to.

That’s the thing about God and us, He can open all the doors, but you have to walk through them yourself. The closed doors well those aren’t an option. You can’t get the job that rejected you. You can’t marry the person that won’t date you. You can’t buy the house after the bank won’t give you the loan. Yet, you knock, God opens, and you walk.

I didn’t have to choose optometry, but I asked God -- I said: “I want this. I know it’ll be hard, but I’ll love it and serve you. This is the dream.” I never had to be an optometrist to be obedient to God, but out of all my open choices, God allowed me, and I chose the life of studying on my Thanksgiving break, staying at school until 8 PM, and staring at eyeballs for hours.

So, all this to say is that I believe God shared with me this dream of optometry, He made it happen in all the ways I couldn’t, and all the ways I could I had and continue to have to do my part with Him. God didn’t stop being here when I got into school, God continued the walk with me. God carried me through the difficult moments when I didn’t study enough but got the grades. God gave me the strength to study. God is not leaving after He gets you through the door.

So, I’m talking with God about a door that’s closed, and I feel like God speaks a word over my life. Do I know for sure? Never. Do I honestly believe it could be from God? Well, I’m sharing it now. I ask God why open something that’s going to close later. Seems kind of cruel.

God tells me that He’s not the only one who closes doors.

Sometimes we think all we can do is knock and wait for doors to open, but all the time we close doors. “I don’t want to work in ministry. I don’t want to go on a date with you. I was offered a position here, but I’ll have to decline.” God asks me if I want Him to put His foot down when I close a door, and of course not. No matter why, if I close the door, I want it closed.

Same with us. Same with our doors. Same with the doors we close on others and opportunities.

God isn’t the only one who opens doors or closes them, but some He will step in to allow them to be closed or open. Strange. Free will will never get old to me.

What God shares with me, in vague details (sorry!), is that all the doors I need will be open to me at the right time. All the doors He wants for me are currently open, and He’s asking me to step in. I think God told me to trust the situation, to stop staring at the closed door and everything I thought walking through it would be like, and fix my eyes on what’s available to me in the here and now.

“But God, this door, I want this one.”

God doesn’t get mad. God is so understanding. God knows me inside and out. “You can open it. I know You can. Please.”

God, not in His hatred but in His mercy, gives me a promise that all the doors I need will be open when they’re ready. Right now, these are my options, and I can stay in the “Saturday” willing the door I want to open or I can trust Jesus. I can trust that all the doors are good, and that if He’ll have everything I need ready when it’s time.

The dream isn’t the door or what’s behind the door. The dream is following God. The dream is believing in what God has already done and says He will do. The dream is trusting that in all of God’s goodness each door is the way it is for a reason and for its season.

I can always try to force my way in, but am I a thief?

John 10:1 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.”

When you try to open the door without God, you’re only robbing your own life. You’re only stealing from the good plans Jesus has laid out for you. God won’t force you to pick a door either, but He has His suggestions when you ask Him. You should ask Him. You can tell Him what you want, God still gives you what you need in the here and now.

Don’t trust in the doors. Don’t trust in the dreams.

Trust God in all the plans He has laid out for you, that everything is for your good, and He’ll make changes as He pleases. He’ll handle it. You don’t need to ask why doors open and close. You don’t need to wait and wonder when one will open. God will make it happen in His way by His timing. God will have His doors for you.

I feel refreshed. I feel relieved.

That doesn’t mean I’m happy. That doesn’t mean I still don’t ask God for what I want. I haven’t given up, but I have to keep going and know that what’s mine will belong to me no matter what it looks like now. The circumstances don’t define my destiny.

God has spoken a better word over my life.

FAQ (these are my personal opinions):

“But Grace, how do you know God said that? What if it’s just you wanting to believe in a fantasy?”

Fruits of the Spirit! I believe that God will share with us through the Holy Spirit, and things of the Spirit bear fruits of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

If what you’re believing in is making you restless, impatient, difficult, unkind, unfaithful, controlling, or reckless -- we should question what spirit is behind the vision or dream. If pursuing this dream is creating more fruits of the Spirit, wouldn’t it be from God? How could it be from you or of this world?

Galatians 5: 19-21 Now the practices of the sinful nature are clearly evident: they are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality (total irresponsibility, lack of self-control), idolatry, sorcery, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions [that promote heresies], envy, drunkenness, riotous behavior, and other things like these. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If I believed that God had told me to pursue optometry, but it made me envious of others who did well, idolize school/my grades, cheat to get good grades, put down people, and be unloving -- do you think God puts dreams in our heart that bear bad fruits?

That doesn’t mean I’ll always be perfect, hey, I’m a Christian, not perfect. Character is consistent though. It’s a pattern not an outlier. Also, you can’t fake the fruits of the Spirit to God. God’s the producer. He can tell counterfeits, so don’t feel like just because everyone thinks they see apples that God doesn’t see your rotten core.

Matthew 7: 17-20 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

It’s easy to ask for a sign, but what if what God gives you is wisdom and discernment to make a choice. God gives a sign? Well we have to believe! God gives us wisdom, then we choose to believe.

“What if I closed a door that I want to open again in the future?”

I really enjoy using this whole door analogy. So, the thing about God and these doors is that while you can close some, some stay closed shut afterwards. The job offer won’t always be waiting for you. The college acceptance award has a hard deadline. That person won’t always be single. We can’t say ‘yes’ to a door without saying ‘no’ to others many times, and sometimes we have to live with the consequences of that. Yet, I believe God can reopen doors we close too.

We have to also trust that otherwise we’ll never say ‘no’ when we should. We’ll live in decision paralysis. We’ll have 3 party invitations and only so many hours in a day. You have to decide prayerfully (that’s important), ask God to lead (in humility), ask for godly wisdom and discernment, and have faith that God can course correct (as much as He pleases). It’s the risk and reward. It’s life. It’s not fair to always get a ‘yes’ when you’re the one saying ‘no’.

For some people, the door you’re closing has been one they’ve been praying and fasting for God to open. But again, we don’t know God or understand the mystery of His will. God can take your ‘no’ and still leave a ‘yes’ when you come back.

If God is guiding me, does that mean it’ll be easy?

Exhibit: Jesus, David, Joseph, Job, Paul, Peter, John, Abraham, Ruth, Hannah-

No, sometimes the route is hard because God is guiding you. In my blog, LIFE SUCKS: WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT? HOW GOD WORKS ALL THINGS FOR GOOD - BLOG # 24, I talked about how God cares about refining you just as much as blessing you. God can give you difficulties because what’s good for you is to increase in love, faith, hope, patience, humility, and joy. Those are treasures that won’t come from a happy go lucky life. It won’t always be hard, but just because it’s God doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.

How do I know if God is guiding me to make choice A or choice B if neither is a ‘bad’ or ‘sinful’ choice?

Read: INTO THE UNKNOWN: WHAT IS GOD'S WILL FOR MY LIFE? - BLOG # 25 which talks about figuring God’s unknown will by seeking after God’s known will. Anything that leads you deeper into love with God, loving others, and obedience will obviously have God’s stamp of approval. It isn’t super black and white or generic. It’s case by case, faith by faith, and person by person.

What will help you love God more?

What choice will create greater dependence?

What choice will lead to a need to trust God?

If it’s something you decide out of fear, guilt, shame, or desperation -- I want to tell you God isn’t mad, He’s sad for you. He wants better for you. He’s not upset at you, He’s upset with you (like alongside you 'with'). God is a good father, a good shepherd, and He wants you to know that you no longer need to be enslaved to fear and guilt. You can choose hope. You can choose in God-given confidence. You can choose in peace. You can choose now without any doubt that you are good, loved, forgiven, and worthy regardless of the choice and outcome.

You can also just choose and see where God takes it from there. Sometimes we need to take the step of faith to be in the job, the relationship, the school program, the major, or the ministry before God will share with us if it was right. God’s mysterious like that.

How can I have peace? How can I stop living in my what-ifs about my decision?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

I think it comes down to knowing you did everything you could to ask God and either things are now out of your control (and STILL in God’s control) or you accept that this is the reality -- the here and now. You can trust God to restore bad decisions. You can trust God isn’t breathing down your back, ready to punish you for not listening, and in fact this is often when He shows the most kindness to you. God is not performance based when it comes to love. God is love. It’s in His nature, so don’t be afraid of not listening to God or not getting it 100% right (willfully or not).

Trust God to be Your Redeemer.

Trust God to make all things new.

Trust God to bring back what was dead into life again.

Ending Prayer:

Dear God, I am filled with an energized spirit thanks to You. I am no longer as fatigued by the burdens that have weighed me. Lord, I know that the nights may come where I face difficulty, but Your mercy is new every morning. Help us to trust Your guidance. Help us to be in wonder not in worry over our situations. Help us to not be downcast by the situation but deepened by our need and desperation for You. God, we are in Your hands. Your good plans are open and ready for us in Your timing.

Lord, in all that we are, all that we do, may our hope not be found in doors, only in You. (#bars)

In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

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Renewed and Refreshed: Guided by God (day 6/7) - Blog # 32

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