Storms, Trials, Anxieties and Everything in Between

I have been having the hardest time motivating myself to blog lately. Every time I have sat down to blog it has turned into a draft that still sits and waits for it's time to shine. I have about five drafts, this being one.

I'm going to get really real with you, if that's alright (I hope so because I'm gonna type it anyway). Since the whole "Life-plan-change-you're-staying-home-and-not-going-to-Cedarville" I have been in a weird funk. I don't love reading like I used to, I can't bring myself to blog, I haven't been painting, and I am disappointed and confused but I don't want to show it most of the time. I looked for apartments with no avail, singleness is hitting hard this season and family life if in a constant shift. I'm frustrated, but optimistic all at once.

Something that hit me is that I found myself singing "You call me out upon the waters... take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.." and yet when He called me out upon them I had the audacity to say, "Not these waters. Different ones. I don't want to walk upon these waters." Like I knew better than the God who made even my inmost being. The One who knows how many breaths I have taken and how many more I will take. The One who knew I would have brown skin and honey colored eyes. The One who knew that I would be writing this blog here in this moment and the One who knew you would read it. Instead, I wanted to stand on the shore and wait for a miracle to happen without obedience.

In Joshua 3 God calls the priests to go ahead of the Israelites and step into the waters of the Jordan river. Now, this wasn't just a creek with a stone walkway, however in the beginning of verse 15 it says that the Jordan was at flood stage. But in verses 15-16 it says once they stepped in it, "the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away... The priests... stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground." God didn't just let them walk through the mud, He made the ground completely dry. A place the Jordan river once flowed at flood stage. Furthermore, it says that the water flowed a great distance away. The object of fear was placed far off and the object of promise was brought near, so near that they walked upon it. How great is He who we serve!

If we keep reading, in Verse 11 it says, "See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you." God didn't just send His people into the waters with a pat on the back and a good-ole "Good luck." No! He already went ahead and won the victory and now He was just sending them into the victory. But in order for them to obtain His victory, they needed to step into the waters in obedience.

Victory comes from obedience, not from passivity, not because He needs us but because we need Him so greatly. Reader, I am preaching to myself here as much as I am speaking to you.

I found it so easy to be obedient when I thought the river God was going to call me to was Africa or Cedarville, but when the river happened to be staying home obedience was not the first thing on my mind. Instead I let the devil win. He knocked both legs our from under me (reading God's Word daily and writing about my Savior) and I fell flat on my butt. I stayed down for a while, too. But I refuse to stay there because I know that my King has won my victory and that victory is mine if I step into these waters with a heart ready to follow.

My reader, I don't know what waters God has placed in front of you -- being on mission within your family, working in a job with that one coworker that is hard to love, singleness, raising children while attempting to make ends meet etc. -- but I do know that God has already gone before you. He has made a way for you to cross the Jordan at flood stage on dry ground. But in order to cross a river you must step into it.


Never Once (Great is Thy Faithfulness) - Heartsong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp3EVAIdPFs