I’ve been realizing this week just how immature I often still feel in my faith. While I may be turning a year older in a couple of days, I don’t feel like I’ve made the same progress regarding my wisdom. I still worry a lot. I still panic a lot. I still fight the elements a lot. I still would rather talk to God than listen to Him. I still argue with God all the time and often mistake His “not yet” for “no” (and then throw a five year old temper tantrum when I don’t get my way). Most of all though, I still have a really hard time letting go; letting go of the things that I can’t control, letting go of the desire to know the unknown, letting go of the people who have hurt or disappointed me, letting go of my fears and insecurities and letting go of the notion that no matter how much I try to “will” it otherwise…bad things still happen. I have a hard time letting go.
I’m amazed sometimes at how much I am able to lose control (the little amount that I do actually have). My world becomes a fog of anxiety and while I act like time is standing still, it still moves along at its steady pace leaving me looking back, days later, wondering what I did with it. And the reality is that not only do I let this happen…but I make this happen. I make this chaos around me. I make the energy of panic swirl around me in a dense cloud of doom not unlike the funnel clouds that I used to see every summer as a little girl. They too created a deep panic in me that I couldn’t quite shake.
I often spend entire days begging God to help me trust Him more…to take away my despair towards a situation that hasn’t even happened yet (and often never does). And yet I still fight. Just like Jacob, I fight determined to prove to God that I am right and that I ultimately know best. Needless to say that I never win, instead, I make the waiting unbearable with my own rationale and logic (that’s usually drenched with emotion instead of faith).
How do others do it? How do they find that ability to take the possibility of broken hearts and broken dreams, and hand it over for someone else to bear the weight? How did Jacob learn to stop wrestling in the dirt with God all the time? How does someone gain maturity in their faith at the same pace that we gain candles on our cake? When do the answers start coming faster than the questions?
All of this to say that for my birthday, I would like my name to be changed to Israel. It seemed to work nicely for Jacob!!
I’m amazed sometimes at how much I am able to lose control (the little amount that I do actually have). My world becomes a fog of anxiety and while I act like time is standing still, it still moves along at its steady pace leaving me looking back, days later, wondering what I did with it. And the reality is that not only do I let this happen…but I make this happen. I make this chaos around me. I make the energy of panic swirl around me in a dense cloud of doom not unlike the funnel clouds that I used to see every summer as a little girl. They too created a deep panic in me that I couldn’t quite shake.
I often spend entire days begging God to help me trust Him more…to take away my despair towards a situation that hasn’t even happened yet (and often never does). And yet I still fight. Just like Jacob, I fight determined to prove to God that I am right and that I ultimately know best. Needless to say that I never win, instead, I make the waiting unbearable with my own rationale and logic (that’s usually drenched with emotion instead of faith).
How do others do it? How do they find that ability to take the possibility of broken hearts and broken dreams, and hand it over for someone else to bear the weight? How did Jacob learn to stop wrestling in the dirt with God all the time? How does someone gain maturity in their faith at the same pace that we gain candles on our cake? When do the answers start coming faster than the questions?
All of this to say that for my birthday, I would like my name to be changed to Israel. It seemed to work nicely for Jacob!!
1 comment:
I think as our faith grows, the more we learn, the more questions we have! It is all a growing process. I think back to different stages in my life and am amazed at how much I have changed and how much I have learned and how different a person I am, life is amazing... I try to see and feel God in everything around me...
Your photography is amazing! coming to edmonton anytime soon???
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