Whosits -or- Whatsits

A close friend of mine had just died in a tragic car accident. Some of her closest friends and I pulled together at the last minute to make the 12 hour trek down to Florida for her funeral. It was not even a question of whether we should be there or not. If it was one of us, she would have done the same thing. I learned a lot through this trip at the end of September. A lot about God. A lot about myself. A lot about true friendship. A lot about grief and living in a way that matters: an act of worship to God.. We all laughed. We cried. We were stretched and grew..

At the same time, my community group at Brentwood Church was (and we still are) going through a study called "The Intentional Woman: A Guide To Experiencing the Power of Your Story". In one of the sections we were challenged to pick a verse from a list of those provided that spoke of who God is to us and what He is going to do in our lives and make it into a prayer. I hesitated to pick just one at first since they were all so good. One of them was one of my favorite verses when I was a young teenager. I set the book down and came back to it a few days later. That was when Isaiah 42:16 popped off the page and became real in my life personally. This happened on the way back from Ashley's funeral.

Isaiah 42:16 says, "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." From this I pleaded with God to take my hand and lead me through whatever may come my way. I knew He would take me places I had never dreamed of before. Where I was once blind and lost in an unfamiliar place, I would trust in God, who is bigger than any of my shortcomings and weaknesses, to take me to a new home simply by seeing through His eyes instead of my own. There would be bumps along the way, but He would smooth them out for me and never leave my side. I was amazed by the power behind this in my life and cried out it out to Him on a daily basis!

Over a relatively short period of time I began to settle into this and get distracted by life. I was still seeking God but not as fervently as before. After just a few weeks everything came to a head. My Father whispered countless deafening truths right to the gut of my being, and my life was turned upside down (for the better). No tragedy befell me, but huge pieces of me were transformed! I realized that I had been focusing on where God was taking me instead of the fact that it was He that was taking me there.

Let me say that again: I was focused on where God was taking me instead of the fact that it was HE that was taking me there.

We have all heard that life is about the journey, not the destination. And I am a firm believer of that. But too often we lose sight of that and, out of our blindness, don't even realize what we've done and how we've subconsciously rejected God by trying to fulfill our dreams on our own terms. We begin to think that the unfamiliar places God promises to lead us through are behind us and that the bumps in the road will be smoothed out before we get there. But all too often God chooses to smooth things out and shed light on the subject after the fact. Possibly not even until we are perfected in glory. We will always only "see through a glass darkly" until we are in the full presence of our Saviour (I Corinthians 13:12). We may get to see more at times, but our vision is limited - we are blind.

So I guess my challenge is this: enjoy your time with God, and have lots of it! Remember that there are some things you won't ever know in this life, and don't need to.. so trust God from every ounce of your being with every intricate detail of your life. But most of all, stop seeking direction and instead seek your Director! Put all of your undivided attention on Him.. It's more about who He is and less about what He does for you. Be content to be, so long as you are "being" in Him!