Perhaps God doesn’t want us
to follow ‘great teachers’ and ‘knowledgeable scholars’. Perhaps He wants His sheep to know His voice
and follow Him and never follow another.
Perhaps He doesn’t want us to figure it out. Perhaps He wants us to believe in Him
completely and only, to listen for His directive from the inside out, to obey
immediately for that moment alone and to receive the love and wonder that He
brings to that simple act.
There are so many ‘good
teachers’ who have figured God out. But
there is always a twist to the story.
There is always an opinion mixed with the truth. I am a teacher and I want to be ‘right’ in
what I teach and how I teach. But there
is always a confused little girl still trying to get out through my
methods. There is always a touch of
waywardness in my best effort. Both Paul
and John wrote of this mystery: how can we belong to God and be so
earthbound. John went so far as to say
“if you say you have no sin, you lie.”
He was addressing the redeemed.
The number of my future
years are surely less than my past years and so there is a great need in me to
know that I am doing the right thing.
I’ve always been a black and white sort of person. My spirit seeks the Lord and a higher
calling. And yet I know my feet are
mired in this earth for it is what I know, it is where I was brought up, it is
where I was trained even to reach for God.
With the need to do good and
leave a legacy, there lurks a remnant of pride that will grow and bloom at the
least encouragement. It is daunting.
Because
of the ‘last push’ syndrome, if you will, I find my self looking for my path
again. I examine the past with those
places where I experience the power and pleasure of my God, but I look to the
future. What should my ‘last days’ look
like. I pray for clarity and
purpose. I read the ‘manual’ and pray
for wisdom knowing that God promises to give it. What I have received has been a bit difficult
for this ‘ducks in a row’ gal to feel comfortable with. Tell me to go to Somalia
This
mandate actually began for me in 2002. I
was feeling that life was about to change for me. I was considering leaving public education to
start my own teaching studio. There was
great turmoil in my gut and God would only say “Listen for my commands on the
inside. Get used to hearing and obeying
just me. This will be a personal walk of
faith.”
I
kept asking “What do you want me to do?” and the answer came again and again,
“Don’t do anything unless I tell you.
You are going to learn to follow me.”
I took on a familiar project I was asked to do and it fell flat. I begged God for reasons feeling so
humiliated. His reply was “I didn’t tell
you to do that.” People questioned my
devotion, my commitment. I slowly began
to understand. When God said “do it” it
was effective. When others or my mind
said “do it” it fell flat.
And
so, it did not seem out of character for a Good, Eternal, Loving and Merciful
God to say “Believe, listen, obey, and receive.” This summer He has added the emphasis of
Jeremiah 29:11. He has a plan, a purpose,
a hope, a future. Therefore His commands
are not heavy, even when they seem scary or hard. I believe in His Goodness. I believe in His Eternal life. I believe in His Love, I taste daily His Mercy. I must listen. His voice is not hard to recognize, it is HIS
voice. Obeying often confronts my
humanity, my faith, my parameters, my understanding for He is God. The only God.
He didn’t say understand or compare.
He just said ‘Obey.’
There
is a measure of preparation for the ability to obey. Communication daily through prayer and His
written word, translating the wonders of His creation into knowledge about Him,
His designs and His rightness, and considering with caution the words of His
servants, all prepare me to obey when I hear the command.
The
receiving is amazing me already. An
endurance race requires patience. I want
to take off on a full gallop when God wants me to dance. Yet He is trustworthy. If I sink in the waves, he will reach for my
hand and pull me out.
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