In 2005 on December 12, I had an encounter with God that changed my life. I've written about this time before and about the different things that have happened over the years since then, and about the many ways that God has restored and renewed and walked with me through so many things, bringing me to new places and ways of living that I had never imagined would be possible.
For the past few years there have been so many things that have been happening, and I would say that it's more than usual, but when I really think back to 2005 and the years since then, I know that it's been a nearly constant experience that, though there are times of rest, the ongoing pattern has been one of continual surprises and activity and seeming changes of course in what I used to refer to as Adventures With Jesus.
As celebrate my twentieth year birthday and enter into my twenty first year, it occurs to me that what has seemed to be changes of course were actually sometimes rerouting or recalibrating, the way that when people drive these days with GPS, the system will send them in one way, and if they make an error or miss a turn or just decide that they're going to go another way, the system will get them back on the track that the system wants them to be on.
I remember the old days of driving, when we would look at a map or ask directions, taking the turns and roads and sections of highway on or off that we wanted to or thought were right. In a strange way, though that time had its own kind of freedom, having GPS gently or not so gently nudging us back to the chosen GPS route gives us a better kind of freedom. We can turn it off, or we can know that if we make a mistake, or someone else does, or something happens to get us off track, we'll still find our way where we were supposed to be all along.
There are times on this road that it seems very confusing, times when I think I'm lost or haven't understood the directions clearly, and times when I'm not sure where I'm going to end up. I was sharing with someone on the evening of the 12th, at a celebration for my born again birthday and their actual birthday how at times I've started out thinking I wanted some things while God kept gently nudging me toward something else, and when I realized where I was being nudged to, that was what I had really wanted all along. He had said to me that he was trying to come to a place of asking himself what it was that he really wanted, and I shared that there are times I'm realizing that question needs to be asked in the quietness of our own moments of communion and conversation and reflection in the presence of God.
So often what we really want goes unsaid or put aside because we have decided that we can't have it, it's impractical, someone else deserves it more, we aren't worthy, or we want to please someone else by letting them have it. As I walk into my twenties, this new decade of my walk of faith, I feel that God is calling me to a place of being comfortable with identifying what it is that I truly want, and to know that if it's within God's will for me to have it, it will happen, and in any case, it's all right to identify it and not put it aside for some reason that I think I should. In an interesting way, this feels akin to letting our light shine, and to being who we are truly meant to be, and when we do that we open a space for others to be able to be their own beautiful selves in all the beauty of life that is meant for them too.
No comments:
Post a Comment