I've written this specific blog probably three or four times. I've been away from home for 36 days and counting. In that time I have been out of my culture, comfort, and occasionally mind. This specific positioning, as many of you know, is the perfect combination for God to do big things in one's life. Even more than these "big things" God will take you into deeper understanding of truths every Christian knows. The one I want to focus on is trust and how interconnected it is with our hopes.
Trusting God with everything means so much more when he begins to take your hopes and closes the door on them.
Trust is so easy when God's plan aligns with your hopes. Coming into this three-and-a-half month long journey I knew that at the end was awaiting huge questions: What will I do after I graduate? Where will I live? Will I even live in the US? What passions should I bind myself to? I left having complete trust that God was going to answer those questions or at least give me peace about next steps. However, what I was not expecting was for subconscious hopes in what those next steps could be to be taken away.
While God did this I had so many realizations. The first is how hard a heart can be in it's hopes. A picture I learned through was watching African women digging up soil with a hoe. That was what was happening to my heart. I was being hacked into, turned inside out, and weeded out. I was so frustrated. I didn't understand how there could still be places in my heart that I hadn't let God work in. He has done this process before how could there possibly be any more hard places? What more could he possibly take? (bad attitude I know) Did I mention how bad it hurts? God was literally splitting desires in me. Desires to hold onto hopes and even greater desires to be changed into what God pictured. This breaking apart of my heart isn't isolated to just spiritual or emotional pain. When your very heart and hopes are being shifted and broken everything hurts. I can recall nights just sitting and crying because I was so physically in pain as my flesh was desperately trying to hold onto control, onto hope in something other than God, hoping that my plan was also his. I didn't understand how some of my dreams could survive without the hopes God had taken. I know that God doesn't have to follow my expected A leads to B leads to C...etc. I know it, but when you place your hope in a plan and God starts diverting it panic ensues.
BUT God is still faithful. After the crying and the numerous "Why, why, why" questions my hand that has clasped all of these hopes and dreams began to soften and open. God lovingly took them and reminded me he is worthy of trust. He called me to realign my trust in his voice alone. Though I was (and still am) blind, weak, and exhausted from fighting for my hopes I fell on his chest and trusted. I trusted that only He could possibly revive me from this mess. Only he could take me where I need to go and give me the strength to do it. Then the joy came and I could move forward with the anticipation that God was about to do something even greater. From sacrifice comes pain, from pain comes comfort and trust, and when I finally trusted I was stretched to a greater capacity to do the process all over again.
These days I've been finding so much comfort in 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, "We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." Whenever I am tempted to focus on what I've lost I just focus on this verse. I have dedicated my life to work by faith, labor in love, and more specific to this post: have steadfast hope in the Lord. When I remind myself of that, petty dreams fall away, and I know I'm doing the right thing.
