Awaiting My Time

Two things...

First, I'm a dope.

Second, God is faithful.

As Beth knows, for the last two yrs or so I've been "walking out of fellowship with God" and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why.

"What else must I do?!"

I've shouted at God. And then comes the panic.

"Just take my life now, God, cuz I'm just wasting my time here and I don't want my entire life to be for nothing."

And I meant it. In fact, for the last few months my desire to just keel over and die has been fueled by more and more fears, pressures, insecurities, temptations, and shortcomings that press down on me in herculean proportions, so massive I can almost see it...if that makes any sense. I've wanted to give up. I've flirted with the idea of suicide.

"I'm not doing any good here. My life is pointless. I'm screwing up my kids, and they'd be better off with someone else who can take care of them right. Someone who wouldn't hinder their relationships with God, etc., etc., etc."

It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. I've always known that since I knew Jesus I can endure anything that Satan throws at me. Anything, that is, except being rejected by God. My faith would not be shaken by anything else...So it's no wonder that I lost faith as soon as I stopped hearing from Him.

Yes... That's what I said.

Beth Moore's Bible study this morning answered so many of my questions, and relieved so many of my fears and anxieties. And I didn't even want to go. At about 9:15 this morning, I was laying in bed thinking,"what's the point in going? I'm just wasting my time."I wasn't going to go, but at the last minute I decided to.
You see, what happened was, initially, God told me to do something. It wasn't that big a thing. I had confessed my lifestyle of lies to numerous people already, and this was just one more, but I got discouraged.

"God, will you ever stop humiliating me? As soon as I swallow my pride and it takes every ounce of courage in me to confess my lies to one person, You bombard me with more. And more....And more! Aren't You ever happy? Will it ever be enough?"

I resolved within myself that I was NOT going to do it this time! A few months later, and after much battling it out with God, I did it. The problem was that I never heard from Him again after that -even until now- I could not understand it either....until now. Was He going to hold it against me forever? Was I going to be like Moses and spend the rest of my life toiling in the desert only to never have the chance of entering the promised land? And no later did God stop speaking to me and suddenly all these old things in me that I thought had been taken care of when I was saved started to resurface and wreak havoc in me, my marriage, my family, and now my friends. I thought it was because I was out of fellowship with God, and it would all go away again if I could just get back where I should be. Unfortunately, my beloved brothers and sisters in cyber space wrongly validated that assumption by telling me all would be well again if I would only pray more. If I would only get rid of the sin in my life. If I would only have more faith. It never occurred to me, and apparently to them, that this just may be God's will for me. So, I've been continuing on for this last two years believing God had abandoned me because I'm sooooooooo far from being sinless. And so I try and I try and I try to get it right so I will hear His voice again, but as any wise Christian knows, that's like trying to squeeze orange juice from out of an apple. So... I get angry and give up. Then I see all the damage this storm is inflicting on my family and I panic and think,

"if I could only just be taken out of the way..."

Well, just yesterday I went to see Joanne Minor and was telling her how I no longer believe God has "left" me because of my inability to be sinless. (hahahahaha... what a dope I am. Well, duh!!), but that He has just allowed some of the old stuff in me to come to the surface where I can see it's still there so I can actually confront it and deal with it. It was wrong of me to believe that just because I was saved all my baggage would disappear. God was just giving me time to rest from it all and is letting me know it's time to move out in faith and conquer these things a little at a time. --Baby steps.

I still don't know why God isn't speaking to me like He did before. He lets me know He's there. At times I can ever so slightly be taken by His beauty again and by this I know that His Spirit still lives in me. But I gotta say, I miss the bliss. When I'm so close to Him that nothing else matters. That there's no possible way I could be afraid or feel anything but joy. Perhaps that's why He's made the good feelings scarce.

"It can't always be bliss." Says Joanne in a rather amused tone. I guess at some point I have to come back down to the realities of living in a sinful body that lives in a sinful world. While it might feel good not to, that won't conform me to the image of Christ.

It's not that I'm going to stop worshiping God now, just that my worship is going to look different. It's going to look like me trusting Him and following where He's leading right now, to this place I so don't want to go.

"But," I thought, "How long will this take? I only have a short time here. I don't want to waste it all working on this junk when there's so much more that has to be done."

And then comes God talking to me through Beth Moore, telling me,

"Time has not gone and isn't going. It's coming. It hasn't escaped Me. Your life is not being wasted. You're just waiting for the fullness of time to come."

And I heard,

"I am Faithful. I am Faithful. I am Faithful..."


I've heard some Christians say that God confirms things. I'll take this as a sign, since He's still not talking to me.

On a side note...

After praying for God to show me what and how He wants me to teach Mitch right now, I came across a book study for Language Arts and we're reading Alexander the Great. Then, out of nowhere, I came across a documentary on the last 300 Spartans (not the movie), which emphasized the training of the great Spartan Leonidas, who trained Alexander. We've been thinking about how his dysfunctional family affected him (a whole lot in common there), and God has been pressing on me to get Mitch to really put himself in Alexander's shoes as a child and young man. I'm not sure why yet. What I did realize today when Beth Moore was talking about him, was how I could incorporate the Bible into our Language and history lessons and since Mitch has a spark in him for history, he may be able to better relate to the Jews of that time.
I'm gonna have to look into it more. Very interesting stuff.