I have the most delightfully awestruck feeling that this coming year is going to be a digging up the potatoes kind of year. For some reason, I see God smiling and with a twinkle in His eye, He says to me "Watch for me. I am coming with God sized deliverance". This is what has been on my heart the last few weeks as we prepare to enter 2011.
I recently watched the movie "Faith Like Potatoes" in case you were wondering where my potato analogy came from. So often the work that God is doing goes on out of our sight. We have seasons of planting. Seasons of waiting. Seasons of trusting. Seasons of drought. Then there is the harvest...the day we see with our own eyes what God has been doing all along beneath the surface. We stand amazed at how beyond our own understanding, striving, complaining, figuring, and short sighted perspective....God had a plan. His timing was perfect. He has provided. All I have left to do is praise Him.
For the last couple years , in certain areas of our life, we have walked through a hostile desert. We have loved and we have lost. We have seen miracles and we have seen devastation. We haven't always understood. I have grown weary and I have despaired. This past year has once again brought the baseness of human nature up close and personal. We have walked in faith trusting that God knows, God sees. God will bring His light. This was a year of persevering in obedience through the drought. I can't help but anticipate and wonder how God will rain down his mercy and glory this coming year. This may not be the year for a torrential down-pour of his healing, only another year of drought, but for some reason I feel the clouds are gathering and I'm longing for a deluge. A front row view of the pain also gives us a front row view of His redemption of it. That is a pretty spectacular place to be...even if we are all ragged and worn when that time comes. Sometimes that may not come until we enter eternity. I really suck at the waiting...especially where injustice is involved.
In other areas of our life we wait expectantly. I am waiting with anticipation to see what God has for us around the next bend. Beyond what I can see. Where will we go? Who will we love? What circumstances will God take us through to teach us what we need to understand? I am wondering what this next year will bring and because there are so many loose ends, unknowns, and impossible situations....I know we will see God's miraculous provision. That is exciting to me. In my immediate family there are two adoptions being processed. Just two examples of active waiting. Waiting on God's perfect timing and provision.
We are also praying about our desire to return to Mexico. There are so many obstacles that we have given to the Lord. Now we wait...and hope...and anticipate. Maybe God has something entirely different for us.
Things do NOT always happen like I want them to, or like I think they should. That does not for a second mean that God is not working.
Sometimes I envision the end result, I see God's redemption in a situation. I hear His calling. I feel God's heart, I see someone with His eyes....but I usually have no clue as to how or when HIS plan will come to pass. Even when we can't see how, His promises remain.
I have very little concept of how my tiny role, my willingness to be used, emptied, even despised, will be a part of that plan. I run into trouble when I try to take matters into my own hands and rush ahead of God.
Moses was given the vision of freedom for his people. He was given the passion and the burden. He then rushed out to stand up to injustice and caused only more problems as a result. The Hebrew people he tried to free despised him. The Pharaoh wanted to kill him. It is interesting though that God used even Moses' blunders to take him to where he needed to be. It was't until Moses graduated from 40 years of humility training in the desert that God used Moses to bring his people out of their bondage. The result was miraculous. I'm sure everyone had lost hope by that point that God was going to intervene on behalf of his people.
God is going to redeem that which is most broken, enslaved, lost, and wounded. God works through His people.
"Watch and see it will not be unredeemed".
God is bringing some good things into the lives of those who he has raised up out of the pit. The lowest, the weakest, the most despised...they will inherit the blessings of His kingdom that He delights to give. His hand also brings justice and will humble the hard and the proud. His hand will right wrongs, extend unfathomable grace, and reclaim what was lost.
He will " rip the deadness out and plant something new".
And so I wait in joyful anticipation for that new work.
"I will abide in the life giving blood of Christ. I'm grafted in."
This may seem like a strange song to include in this post. It may seem like a strange song period. Maybe this is a strange post in general. There are likely songs that are more inspiring or applicable but for some reason I am drawn to this one today. (don't forget to push pause on the music playlist at the bottom of my blog first).
2 comments:
I feel awash in losses this year and full of unshed tears. Thank you for your post, I needed the pep talk...I've been giving myself one for months and it just hasn't worked.
Great lesson,Carla! Reminded me of Kristin's story of Rage Against the Minivan and how their year unfolded totally different than they expected.
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