Not Mine, but Thine

When you walk, God’s commands will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. – Proverbs 6:22

Over the past year, I have truly come to know Jesus as the Author and Perfector of my faith. I have had moments, days, and weeks when I’ve wondered if I heard Him correctly or if He had spoken at all, if I was really listening to Him or if I was just pretending to seek Him yet trying only to hear Him speak what I wanted Him to speak in regards to my wants and perceived needs. Then there were moments, days and weeks where I felt His presence so near and so clearly that it was undeniable, those times where I knew with every fiber of my being that I was walking in His will and fulfilling His purposes for that moment. As He has grown my faith through both types of circumstances, I am thankful to know that I know that I know that He is always walking with me, that when I sleep physically and yes, spiritually by slipping into patterns of busyness and honestly, just plain selfishness, that take my mind and my heart from wholeheartedly seeking Him, He is there, watching over me. I am also thankful that morning by morning He awakens me to His mercies anew and that by His glorious grace He awakens me spiritually to hear His commands that guide me into His purpose and work that He has prepared for me to do.

Praise you Jesus!

On Monday, May 9th, the Home Group Bible study that I attend was canceled due to our leader having a temperature of 104 degrees. I believe at this time the heat was turned up so that I would turn my eyes and ears to hear what God was ready to reveal. I spent some time studying and reflecting on the past few years.

I suffered from iron deficiency anemia, poor digestion, broken out skin, thinness/frailty, paleness, loss of energy and just a general loss of zeal due to fatigue. In the process, I tried gluten-free eating with some success, veganism with yet other benefits, supplements galore and finally an elimination diet followed by Garden of Life nutritional supplements. All of these methods produced some benefit for a time, but nothing brought full healing and restoration, the kind I longed for and felt deeply that God wanted me to experience. I wondered why He didn’t just heal me as I knew He could. During this time I prayed that God would either take me home to Heaven or restore me and help me to know the purpose, the thing that I could truly say that I was created to do.

I realized that He wanted more than to just heal me in the blink of an eye. He wanted to grow my faith and develop a closer relationship with me and for me to know the work He had prepared for me to do and had been preparing me to do. I had my own plans for life, my own agenda, my own timeline…But God, in His mercy and love, caused my work and striving to stop so that I would know He is God (Job 37:7) and no matter what I can conjure up in my mind, He has already prepared the work He has for me…I must simply seek to walk with Him.