Who else is so fearful of the unknown and afraid of doing the wrong thing? I for sure am. The fear often stops me from living life fully and living how God calls me to live. I pray and pray for Him to tell me where to go and what to do, and then when He calls, I retreat and hide. Why? Why do I live with such little faith and so much distraction?
That is the question that I am often left with. I honestly have not had much quiet time in the last few months as life has been a whirlwind. It’s kind of crazy how life can go from being chill one second, to crazy the next. Much like being on a boat that is smoothly sailing and then all of a sudden, a massive storm hits, and you feel unprepared, stressed out, and scared. What do you do in those moments? What do you do when things have gotten crazy, and you can tell God is moving in your life and calling you to things that feel a lot greater than you can handle? These last few months I have been running to everything but Him. He calls me to come out of the boat, and I look around to see if there is anything else I can grab onto. He calls my name and I drown His voice out with the waves crashing into the boat. He pulls me towards Him, and I pull back to stay on the boat. It’s all driven by fear and some laziness, to be honest. Not wanting to change because I feel like the last few months have been nothing but constant movement and all I want to do is just stand still for a moment and breathe…but I know God’s still calling me to move.
God often reminds us of our need for Him by humbling us. We were made for Him and Him alone. We weren’t made for ourselves, for someone else, or even for a worldly purpose. We were made to love and serve with God. When we look at Jesus, we see God and man combined. He is what we were to be and are still able to be. We were made to tend to people, tend to the earth, and tend to God. We were made to have compassion for all who are hurting and struggling. We were made to have the most loving hearts because that’s who God is. And while He is a God with the most loving heart, He is also a jealous God. He wants our full hearts to love Him, not just parts of our hearts. We all want that, right? If we love someone fully then we want them to love us fully back too. If they don’t fully love us back it really hurts. We still do things for them because of our love for them, but it hurts. That’s what I imagine God feels when we don’t fully love Him back.
We have all these other things calling to us. These distractions seem so much better than Him. Time and time again God shows me where my heart is truly at and fights to have my heart back. He fights by loving me and humbling me. He shows me that He is who I was made for. Time and time again He fights for our hearts. What are we doing to fight for His? We take His love, grace, mercy, and kindness for granted daily. It’s, unfortunately, our nature, but knowing our nature tells us how we can fight to make His heart first in our lives.
As followers of Christ and people who love God, we are going to have moments and seasons where we put things before God, tune God out, or just take time out to catch our breaths. I so don’t like those moments because those moments are dang humbling. But I think those moments help me realize where my heart is. It’s in those moments and seasons of little faith and much distraction, I can’t help but see God’s hand reaching out to pick me up and help dust me off again. I can’t help but marvel at the grace God freely gives us all because He really does want us and really does love us.
Verses from today’s post:
MATTHEW 14:27-31
Immediately Jesus spoke to them. “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter answered him, command me to come to you in the water.”
He said, “Come.”
And climbing out of the boat, Peter stared walking on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand, and caught hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
DEUTERONOMY 8:3
He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
ISAIAH 43:10-13
“You are my witnesses”-
this is the Lord’s declaration-
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
No god was formed before me,
and there will be none after me.
I – I am the Lord.
Besides me, there is no Savior.
I alone declared, saved, and proclaimed-
and not some foreign god among you.
So you are my witnesses”-
this is the Lord’s declaration.-
“and I am God.
Also, from today on I am he alone,
and none can rescue from my power.
I act, and who can reverse it?”
