Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I was watching a car pass by my house the other day and noticed the dog in the back seat who was looking right at me. Neither the driver nor the front seat passenger looked in my direction, but the dog looked right at me. The people up front were busy watching the road and looking at where they were going, but the dog was looking at the scenery and looked right at me. This got me thinking. I started thinking of the children who ride in our cars and what they see differently from us. For the view from the back seat is totally different from the front seat. We like the front seat better for the view seems bigger with that wide open front windshield helping your sight, but so often whether we are the driver or the passenger, the ones in the front are focused so much on what is in front of them, the next turn, the bend in the road, whatever it may be that those people miss the fine details. It can be that our children are the ones with the really great seat for they are forced to focus on the ride rather than the final destination.
Roads we have traveled, roads we have gone on where we either insisted on being the driver, opted to be the passenger, or feel were were forced to sit in the back seat, these are all a part of our life and all too often we feel we have taken the wrong road and can never get back to where we were supposed to go. Our travel plans that God once had for us have been changed and the “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” those plans now have to be rewritten. We seem to think of God as having this ideal situation for us, but oops she really blew it this time and now He has to rewrite our future He has for us all over again. But something has recently hit me, “Not that I have already obtained all this...I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it..." but I think His plan that He had for me, this ride that I am now on, this life that I now live, I think this was all part of His plan. Don't get me wrong! God did not choose for me to live in sin the way that I did. He did not choose for any of those bad/horrible/outlandish things to happen. They were my choices and I have to live with the consequences of those choices, but I think He always had the map! I think He knew were I was going and where I would pass by. I have to thank God that when my suffering within my sin, when I had had enough, He was there to show me the road. Not a path that had been diverted, but a path waiting for me.
Let me try and paint this picture and explain: When Jason was little he used to come up here to go camping with his family. On his journey, being the passenger in the back seat, his view was different than that of his parents. Children look around and have landmarks that tell them where they are, something familiar to give them a reference point. One of those landmarks that he looked for was an Aspen tree with the initials JS carved in it. For years he would look for that tree and when he would see it he would say to himself, "Almost there!" What he and I both discovered years later was, that tree was my tree. JS was me! My daddy had carved my initials in my tree when I was a very young girl. Jason always looked with great expectation for my tree for that told him that his trip, his final destination was just around the corner. My tree remained in our lives until right before we got married. The road was widened and the tree was torn down. I have to believe that it was because we were finally together and the landmark for that part of our journey was no longer needed.
Now this is not a note on how to land a husband and this is what our whole journey in life needs to be about "finding our soul mate." No, I think God had a much bigger picture! He just allowed me to see that maybe I didn't need to look at all the awful things I had done and think, "Well if I had chosen a different path, maybe this or that would have been different." He allowed me to see that He is in charge and He knew what path I would take and now I am just focused on the right leader to take me there. I am waiting for my Father's nod to tell me where to go. I am allowing Him to hold the map, even if I think I have a better idea. The path has not changed! I am just willing to listen as we travel and my pain is not so severe.
Philippians 3:13, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
It is not really about forgetting our past. It is all about not regretting it so much! I have my memories. My body suffers from the abuse. This does not hold be back, "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” The prize, the final goal, is a relationship with Christ! This is what it is all about. The closer we become, the more I can hear Him, (Even in those moments where I cannot hear Him, but He wants me to take that next step in faith with me knowing He is close by) the relationship we have together is my greatest desire and the reason I make time for Him... Even if that time is only to tell Him, "Thank You for the sounds of the singing birds." This journey is to have relationships. Our memory is to thank God for the Cross, for I know who I am without Him.
“When we share the point of disturbance we are telling people it is the grace of Christ that is offered to you to rescue you from a life of self destruction.” (RZ)
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