Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere

I walked down to the waterfront to see the fireworks last night, and while I was watching them I remembered the time around the fireworks the year just before I was born again, July 2005. I was in a relationship at the time that had just gone sour – so sour so suddenly I didn’t see it coming. The man I loved and had invested everything in decided to end it over a business deal – that’s really all it was – it was all about money. The situation I’m dealing with now is the same thing, really. When it comes down to it, it’s all about money. Money, position, and power, three idols people make for themselves and get so caught up in that they forget to see - or care - that they’re hurting the people around them in an effort to protect themselves. Back in 2005 it was a panic situation for the man I loved – his business partner was pushing all of his buttons and he lit up on every floor. I’d get him calmed down and then he’d talk to the business partner and get all riled up again. It went on for months like that, with me thinking that he’d eventually stay calmed down and listen to reason, but that never happened and with each passing day I lost more and more and more of myself.

I was talking to a friend about the difference between the way I feel now and the way I felt then, the way I deal with things now in contrast to once upon a time. Back then I’d hang on and hang on and keep giving people another chance, giving more and more of myself to them, hoping that they’d get it together and start acting decent. Now when I see certain things I know all bets are off. In Christian circles we call that discernment, when the blinders come off and you start to see who people really are. It’s not fun and it’s not pretty, but it’s a necessary part of growing up and something that helps us to take a step back from a situation and decide the best next steps based on what is really going on, not just our hopes for how things can get better.

There are times when the Lord will tell us to just simply stand. I’ll be ready to run out the door and He’ll say, “Wait.” But then there are other times when He’ll say, “Go,” and we have to be so open to hearing His voice that when He says, “Wait,” one minute and, “Go,” the next, we’re ready. But the other side of the equation is that He knows what we’re going to do before we do it. That doesn’t mean that when He says, “Wait,” and we don’t that it’s ok. There are things that can get really messed up when we don’t do what He asks us to do. He may know that we’re going to do things our own way, but that still doesn’t make it the right thing to do. When we really listen to Him, we end up saving so much time and effort, and things become easier to handle. “Yet those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” (Isaiah 40:31) When we wait on Him, He shows us there’s another way to go.

There have been promises the Lord has made to me that I have been waiting on, and then more things started to happen that seemed to mess up the mix even worse. In the beginning I really thought that it was something that came straight from the pit of hell, and it may have, but God allows those things to happen, too, to strengthen our faith while He prunes our dead branches and brings the fruit out into the open air. The Spirit gave me the scripture from Isaiah 40, but I had to look it up to see where it is and to make sure I used the right translation and it was worded the way He wanted it to be worded. I looked at all of the translations I saw and chose the one that He said fit the best. Then at the prompting of the Holy Spirit I looked up the whole chapter, and I found as always that there is a bigger word He has for me.

Isaiah 40 begins with these words, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” So my struggle is over. And then, right in the center, in verses 18-20, we find a discussion about idols - there they are, right in the middle of a description of God’s glory. When I read that I don't understand why we let anything become more powerful or important to us than God, and I understand that anyone or anything that is coming against me in any way that is against His will for my life will be overcome by His power. And then at the end of the chapter, we read this, “Why do you complain, Jacob, why do you say, Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is disregarded by my God’? And then after that is the message about waiting for Him. He hears me, He has not forgotten me, He is not disregarding what has been happening to me. All He is asking is that I wait on Him and His timing. When I put those points together with all of the chapter, I have my message. It is a message that helps renew my strength, and not just any strength, but strength in my Spirit that  helps me keep going when the going gets tough.

There’s a song that we sing in church that is based on 2 Timothy 1:7, and when I tried to look it up I couldn’t find who wrote the music. The lyrics are all the Lord’s, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but He has given unto us, a spirit of power, a spirit of love and a sound mind. Wait on the Lord, and be of good courage. Wait on the Lord, and be of good courage, for He has given unto us, a spirit of power, a spirit of love and a sound mind.” When the going gets tough I need that reminder, and that song always helps. It’s very simple and I can sing it anywhere anytime any way I choose.

There’s a Who song from 1965 called "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," and right in the middle of it we find these lyrics, “Nothing gets in my way, not even locked doors, I don’t follow the lines that have been laid before, I get along any way I dare, anyway, anyhow, anywhere.” When I was first born again, the Lord started to show me that even bands like The Who have lyrics that come from Him. “Love Reign O’er Me” is almost totally His song. If you think about that lyric in the center of "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," it’s His too. If we’re walking the way He asks us to walk, there is nothing that can hold us back from what He has for us. Not locked doors, not people who try to get in our way, nothing on earth or under the earth or in the heavenly realms. It doesn’t mean they won’t try, but “though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed," (Psalm 21:11). If we are walking with Him and waiting on Him there is nothing that can stand in our way.

But sometimes there are things that we need to walk away from in order to walk with Him. And that is what I was thinking about last night while I remembered the fireworks I saw in 2005. He’ll always tell us when and how and where and what to do, so we want to make sure we’re not just going anyway anyhow anywhere. We want to make sure that it’s His way, not ours, and that we’re clear on what He wants us to do next. When we do that, we can dare to keep standing, and we can go anyway, anyhow and anywhere we choose, as long as we’re choosing to go with Him.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan