When God's Will Aches Your Heart

I haven’t been in a season where tears are constantly lingering in my eyes all day for years. To be specific, since 2019 when my world was shaken — family, church, and camp ministry. I have found myself choking back tears all day, wrestling with the statement “not my will, but your will God.” Obviously in this life I have learned that God’s will is best, but how do we battle with the fact that sometimes God’s will breaks your heart for a season? When you so desperately want your desires to align with His plans but you know that the latter of those plans bring extreme grief and brokenness for a while? How do we as believers wrestle with that?

My dear reader, how I wish I could say you just simply trust God more today than ever before, but trust is hard. To trust is to be vulnerable. It’s like jumping from great heights knowing that Someone, who has been ever present and faithful, will catch you at the bottom yet still feeling the free fall on your way to His arms — oh, our fallen world. 

In this season the Lord is teaching me that I’m really good with general vulnerability and past vulnerability but not detailed current vulnerability. It’s an area of life I often hold close and apologize for if it slips out — it’s engrained in me to be strong and protect family at all costs. Even if that’s at the sacrifice of self, which can be seen as noble in culture. Yet Christ says when we are weak He is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-11), not when we are strong He is even stronger. Let’s not get that passage twisted. There is a reason that Paul reminds us of our humanity, because in our humanity God can show His sovereignty. Not sovereignty that is contingent on us, but sovereignty that is fully and wholly reliant on Him alone. 

Of all things, in the start of 2023, the Lord has laid Daniel on my heart. Not simply to read through the passage, but to study intently. To understand the history, eschatology, and life of Daniel; and subsequently study King Nebuchadnezzar’s role in Daniel’s calling and mission. Daniel’s life was a direct reflection of the God he served, and if you have put your life in Christ we serve today. His constant defiance of the world and pursuit of Christ pointed Nebuchadnezzar back to the throne of Christ. In the midst of being ripped from his home he chose Christ always — even in the courts, even in the fire, even in the lion’s den, even in captivity. He. Chose. Christ. 

I’m in a season of watching some of my family members walk far from Christ, a season where they are battling darkness only the Lord can shine light into. Oh even to say that statement makes me tear up. To feel the brokenness of sin yet still choose it makes my heart ache. And yet Christ leads me back to Daniel. He leads me back to the active choice of presenting Christ even if it means tension in the moment — because their eternity is in the balance. He leads me back to asking for knowledge and wisdom in Godly things, and that He will do the rest. I just need to choose Him. He is showing me that His Will might hurt, but that nothing that ever happens in this life will ever go void. 

Lord, teach my desires to align with your will. 

Miracles - Kari Jobe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2y_HxAYeJE