Blind Obedience

A few weeks ago, God told me to stop taking new weddings.

It was a shock- and yet it wasn't.  I was surprised, yet looking back I can see whispers of Him preparing my heart.

I obeyed.  It was hard, but there is something about the energy of the time after a decision- it's a certainty, a conviction that makes obedience a little easier.

It's after the shiny newness of obedience wears off- like, say, now- when it takes looking straight up at God and putting one foot in front of the other.  To look around and get your bearings is to realize your decision doesn't make sense by the world's standards.

I am there.

I don't know what the end result of this is.  I don't know if I am done with weddings for a time or forever.  On this road, the explanation is around the bend, hidden from my view.  And there are so. many. other things going on that I don't understand right now.

I am blinded, and I think God wants it that way.

He wants me to be utterly confounded, so that there is no way I can rely on logic or reason or "figuring this out."  He is reminding me this is His story, not mine.

A few months ago, I was reading this blog post when this quote grabbed my attention:

"Lord, you are God and I am not.  May your will, not mine, be done."

I wrote it on a post-it and stuck it on my bathroom mirror until it finally fell off.  By then I had it memorized.

 The funny thing is that it doesn't say "May your will be done when it agrees with mine."  Wouldn't it be great if it worked that way?  Okay, on second thought, maybe not.  But that seems to be my leaning.

And it's sin.

And God is cleansing my heart of it...one foot in front of the other...one step at a time.

Wide

Lately, God speaks a little about a lot of things.  For me who craves depth, it leaves me squirmy.  Why does He tell me only bits and pieces, leaving me to wonder and worry about the rest?

It is His way.

I trust Him, and so I trust His way- I guess.  It is uncomfortable, broad instead of deep; wide.

My laser focus for a long time has been work.  This at the expense of relationships... health... balance... recreation... sanity... the more abundant life.

And now it's as if He wants me out of that rut and out of my head, to look wide and up and outside of my drive, and see what He has given.

He gives good gifts, and I am racing right by them.

And I sometimes see and notice, but in a hurried sense- can there be such a thing as hurried gratitude?  That space of "Yes, that's great, but there is more work to be done?"

I did it to be faithful.  An extreme interpretation of this verse, maybe.  I want to honor Him with my life.

Now He's teaching me to wait, commanding me to take a break.  This is a time of cognitive restructuring, and more importantly, a time of heart surgery.  The message I hear lately is

I care more about who you are than what you do.

I hear it, but it's almost as if it doesn't find a home in my consciousness.  So that is what I am working on, accepting this.  Work is not life.  Calling is not even the most important thing.  The tasks God places in front of us are not only by design of what skills and experience we have, but are also (and possibly more) related to how God wants us to grow.

Mind-blowing.

God cares about our hearts that much.

*****

Linking to 5 Minute Friday

Graceful

Today's word at Five Minute Friday is "graceful."  (That sentence makes me feel a little bit like a Sesame Street character...)

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I wonder where this word got it's cultural meaning.  I look it up, knowing the meaning but hoping for more inspiration.  It seems rather superficial, all about appearance.

And it's curious to me, as I know Grace as a life-giving sacrificial gift, that the definition we often use is so constraining. It seems full of rules and expectations and "shoulds", so opposite of the freedom that holds hands with Grace.

Graceful dancing.

Graceful body.

Graceful manners.

Graceful writing.

Graceful appears effortless, natural.  That seems foreign to me- my words are diligence, discipline, hard work.  And yet, maybe effortlessness is the connection that makes "grace" and "graceful" distant cousins.  Grace doesn't demand effort.  It doesn't appear natural, it allows for natural.  The boundless excess of grace makes up for my faults, effortlessly on my part.

Grace covers it all, even my lack of graceful.  It alone makes me enough.