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Jun 4, 2021

 

I feel the need to begin this post by restating where we ended last. As we settle into our new space, we are still awaiting the answer to our current question; “now what?”

 

Maybe you recall that in my last post I made the statement below,

 

When God says He will, He does. When He asks you to commit to the work and you step in faith; He does the heavy lifting. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying walking in faith is all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns; it most definitely is not. In fact, it is warfare. It is intense. It can be heart wrenching at moments, but as a Christ follower we either believe what we say we believe about God or we don’t.

 

As often is the case, when we make a proclamation like the one above, we find ourselves living out the very thing we put forth. It is my observation that in some cases when we share our faith journeys, we tend to leave out some of the day to day not so glamorous details. I don’t think this is intentionally done by most as a means to glamourize but rather just a lack of the real-life stuff when sharing the glory of what God is doing. The downside to that is that we leave folks feeling like God isn’t moving for them like He moves for us, or maybe worse, as if their lives are not as blessed as ours because they struggle with junk or the yuck stuff.

With that said, I feel like I should share some of the not so pretty stuff tonight, because even when God leads and delivers - life still is life. For example, since the last time we chatted we have had our share of not so glorious moments. For one, adjusting to life in the country means adjusting to wildlife and creatures not so common in the suburbs and at times that can mean misinterpreting an extremely large feral cat in the tree for something like a bobcat. Yes, that was a moment that cleared the yard! It also was an event that has me mulling over how at times in our walk our perception of what might be can taint the way we see what really is; perspective matters, but that’s a blog for another day.

 

Additionally, even when God delivers His anointed land or calls you to His holy ground it does not mean that every piece of plumbing or structure is without flaw. Which, in our case, led us to experience an indoor waterfall round about midnight. As we lie in bed drifting off, we heard in our half sleepy state a mighty, rushing wind…no wait…it was not an outpouring of the Spirit but an outpouring of water! The culprit, a holey rather than holy bathtub that split open enough to dump the contents (minus the person) downward and all over the kitchen floor below. 

 

And as if those events were not enough, we returned home one afternoon later in the same week to find one of our newly acquired donkeys had moved on to glory without us, so it was indeed not the rapture we are all eagerly awaiting since we were left behind. Ok, maybe that joke lacks a little reverence, but my point is that not every moment of our journeys of faith are full of spiritual wonders. Life is life, even for those who are “called according to His purpose.”  We all have our moments, our days, our weeks, our months, and even our years that are riddled with yuck, but in reference to that earlier ponder, perhaps our perception of those moments is what shapes the way we see what really is.

 

I was reminded yet again of that lesson tonight within a brief conversation with a former student. When I inquired as to how his mental space has been lately, he stated that “[he] was taking things day by day and that [his] outlook was improving as [he] was seeing God at work in [his] life even in the small things like delivering [him] a job.” That my friends is a young man learning to live his faith journey with “eyes to see.” May we all be inspired to follow that example of perspective and focus on where God is at work, “even in the small things.”

 

~ Jen