Sometimes you pray for something for years.
Sometimes you lose the passion, and what once was a joy becomes a chore. You seek God to know if the problem is your attitude or because you’re working in your own strength instead of His, and you find greater strength and receive the grace to find joy in serving. But the passion never quite comes back, and you wonder if it’s a sign that God is preparing you for new things.
You keep praying and seeking Him and finding Him in ways that make everything else pale in comparison… even in a pandemic!
But more months go by until it’s a year, and maybe longer but you lose count. And patience is sometimes hard because it seems like forever since you started praying for the “new.” But sometimes patience is easy because you KNOW that any change outside of God’s plan would not turn out well, and you don’t want to make a decision because it looks momentarily good if it’s going to end up being a disaster.
You keep tentatively knocking on this door and that one to see if they open. Sometimes the door looked only mildly interesting and it’s easier to trust when it doesn’t open, but other times that door-that-stayed-shut looked so perfect that it’s much harder to quiet the “if only” thoughts and just TRUST… much harder to just REST in the knowledge and perfect timing and provision of the perfect God whom you adore and never want to stop serving.
But then comes the day when you’re (again) talking it all out with God, and you suddenly realize that something has shifted within you. Something you hadn’t been willing to consider before suddenly feels perfect. What used to feel like too much of the unknown and the impossible now feels like the most secure and sensible thing… if the God who knows all things and loves to do the impossible is leading you there.
And so you quietly take a step in that direction that you never wanted to go in but now suddenly do.
And within 24 hours, a door starts swinging open. And the next day it swings wide open. And two days later the next door swings open, and you find yourself watching what happens when God gives you favor with people who didn’t know you existed the week before. And four days later the next door swings open… and you keep walking through them even though whatever is on the other side is still almost completely clouded. Because that’s what you do when God is leading you. (And He has been known to lead with a cloud and speak from a cloud.)
And THAT is how (and why) I am suddenly in the midst of a job shift. I’m leaving behind the wonderful people I’ve worked with for 11 years. Instead of “a new job,” I’ll be an independent business consultant going forward. I’ve already started working with another set of wonderful people who have handed me a delightful mess of spreadsheet data to untangle. (I’m one of those crazy people who love spreadsheets, and I love puzzles, so this is right up my alley.)
I believe this client will be the first of many clients that God will bring me in the years to come. He will select each client, He will determine the timing, and He is my senior partner with the controlling interest in this business venture. I’m excited!
. ~°~. ~°~ . ~°~ . ~°~. ~°~ . ~°~.
I hope my story encourages those of you who might also feel stuck in the middle of something that’s feeling more like mud and quicksand with every month that passes.
Prioritize your relationship with God above “getting out.” Your personal and unique relationship with Him is the channel through which you will find strength and grace and joy in your “now.” It is the channel that He is using to get you ready for your “future.” It is the channel through which He wants to work as He leads you through the “in-between.” And He wants His relationship with you to be the always-growing constant between where He’s got you right now and where you’ll be in two years or ten years.
God is FAITHFUL!
He is GOOD!
He KNOWS what is really going to be good for you and what isn’t, and He knows what preparations you need before that next step arrives. Trust Him and seek to learn what He wants to show you in your “now” so that the time waiting isn’t wasted.
HE LOVES YOU!
“For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11
“I am doing something new; it’s springing up — can’t you see it? I am making a road in the desert, rivers in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19
“Many, Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; there is no one to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.” Psalm 40:5
“Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s decree will prevail.” Proverbs 19:21