Peace In Our Confusion

“You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.  How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered!  I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!  And when I wake up, you are still with me!”  - Psalm 139:16-18

“In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus.  When I am alone, give me Jesus.  When I come to die, give me Jesus.   You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.”  I love this song, it reminds me of the verse that says, what good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?

In this life we have so many plans, so many desires, but the only desire we need is Jesus Christ.  It can be so easy to become the Martha, instead of the Mary, and get so caught up in the work we are doing for Jesus; consequently, forgetting to just sit at His feet, to desire Him and Him alone. While in Guatemala I remember Pastor D saying, “We need to be distracted by Jesus, so that nothing else can distract us away from Him.”  If we are so caught up in Jesus, that nothing else can grab our attention, then we are definitely in His sweet spot.  This though, of course, is easier said than done.

Reading this verse I focused on the first half.  God has a plan and He has known the end since the beginning.  How nice it would be to know God’s plan.  Being in IGNITE has definitely confused the plan (aka. “My Plan”) a little bit.  Which, to be honest, can be hard.  My life has always had an order in my mind, there was a plan.  Everything else could fall apart, but I had control over one thing, where I was going. Well, at least that is what I thought.  Ehhh, wrong. God’s plan is bigger than my plan, it has more turns and bridges, it requires faith and trust in the One who is guiding me.  To follow His plan requires me to constantly be running to Him for guidance, to constantly be seeking His face, and to constantly be distracted by Him.  

That is what made me focus on the second half of this verse, “And when I wake, you are still with me!”  Life, sometimes can feel like a path with no light.  You know that you are walking on the path, you know it is guiding you to where you need to go, but you have a blindfold covering your eyes.  One has to trust the one guiding them on the dimly lit path.  It is when one lets go of the guide that one gets lost.  Just like when we become distracted by other voices, many times our own, instead of following the Holy Spirit that we too get lost.   We need to know our shepherd’s voice, He needs to be our all in all, the one who consumes our thoughts.

Only then will the path slowly shed light.

But even then,

We must trust. 

We Don't always know what is next, or what we are called for in any certain instance.  God never promised us complete clarity, but He did promise us His peace.