Posted By Phylicia on October 5, 2009

I am not going to put a pretty picture on this post.  I may stop putting up pretty pictures for a little while.  Sometimes the words on the page need to suffice, and if they are worth reading a picture won’t make them better or worse… even though it may be worth a thousand more words.  But I don’t want a thousand more words today, I want to keep this succinct.

The Lord has been working greatly and in ways I cannot always comprehend.  I do not understand what he is doing, where he is taking me, or what he is molding me to be at this point.  But I know he is working.  I can see it in the speakers I listen to, the verses I discover, the conversations that begin, and the friends that he brings to me.  He is doing something good, something great, and I do not yet know what that something will be.

At the same time, however, I keep finding that the power of the speakers, the verses, and the friends that he orchestrates is held back from its fullness in my life.  While I can hear a message and hope that it will have the promised effect I simultaneously allow my personal desires to block God’s will from full effectiveness in my life.  I know it is happening; I believe the Spirit of God has convicted me of this.  But all the same I continue to battle between the opportunities God lays before  me and the immediate wants of my human self.

This is plain and simple:  I am struggling against the will of God.  This is the very will I asked him to reveal to me so I could follow, and he stands with his hand on the open door, while I refuse to go through it.  It isn’t a clear door — like a specific job or home or place to go.  Rather, it is the door to obedience and surrender, a door that will lead to those things my heart desires but when God desires them for me. 

Faith in Christ is simple at its core, but when I add the frills, fluff, and ribbons of my personal dreams to my faith in him I am left with a decorated, but hollow, worldview.  No; faith must stand alone.  I can’t force the Lord into my time frames and dreams, my hopes, my goals, my wants.  He gave me talents but he also gave me a purpose, and he does not want to hide that purpose from me!  He wants me to know his will.  I do not need to play Scavenger Hunt for the great map of my life.  He is ready to reveal it.  But am I ready to obey?

It’s very plain.  It’s very simple.

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