Sometimes I walk too fast. People who know me laugh at this. Someone once taught me a really valuable lesson using this simple example. When I walk ahead, sometimes I can feel left behind, but it’s up to me to slow down and keep pace with the person I’m walking beside. Slowing down and letting them set the pace, letting them lead, results in me no longer feeling alone, frustrated, or impatient and waiting. Recently, I’ve been learning to slow down and really pause on the phrase, “one day at a time”. When I think too far ahead I can get easily overwhelmed, frustrated or even afraid. It’s as though I’m letting my thoughts walk too far ahead, instead of walking in pace with Christ. Believing, and accepting, Trusting, is hard, but it’s a lot easier one day at a time. This has been the prayer of my heart recently,
“God, be so REAL to me. I don’t need changed circumstances, or new information. I need your truth of Christ to be real to me so that my desires for the other good things become manageable and not greater than my desire for you. As a result may your Spirit’s fruit grow in me. In the midst of sadness, impatience and fear I cry out, please grant me faith and grace to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer. Please place me where you need me. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.”
I don’t trust God when I walk ahead. When I do, this I’m saying, “I know the way, the direction to go.” This is disobedience. I disobey because I want to take control and don’t trust that His presence is better. I can lack self control, self esteem and grace for self and others when I don’t anchor my hope in Him instead of myself. Self-preservation, self-protection, bitterness, worry, self-hate – these expose that I’m trying to control my circumstances instead of controlling my allegiances.
Hebrews 6:19 “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul.”
It helps me to ask myself, “What lesson do I still need to learn in order to truly let go and surrender?” This slows my pace. When He is my hope, I have peace. I trust, and am anchored in His wisdom, love, grace and justice. I have my own ideas of what my happy endings should look like, but when I let those ideas go I exchange them for God’s hope for me. This Hope leaves me excited instead of anxious to see what His endings will look like. It opens me up to the possibility of God’s unfathomable, unknown plan vs my narrow one. We worship a God who reveals himself unceasingly, that is what Jehovah means.
Genesis 15:6,8 “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as rightouseness […] v8But he said, “O Lord, God, how am I to know…”
God has a plan, He unfolds it at His own pace, and if I stay in step I can not help but stay humble. I go to God and humbly say, “God, how do I fulfill my part? How do I know your will?” I am never ready for His reveal, for His plan, but when my allegiance is to Christ, I can rise to the challenge, one day at a time. When I let go of my perspective I open myself up to the true lessons, it frees me to go onto new, more rewarding experiences. In each day I experience Him, see Him, watch Him reveal Himself to me.
Genesis 15:13 “Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain …”
Like He did with Abram and others, God answers, “I will show you.” He gives me certainty in His promises not in my emotions. The more I trust, the more real He is to me, one day at a time, and I walk in step, by faith. One day at a time I choose my allegiance to Him so my heart can be clean and when it’s not, I can see that too and be renewed. I can be myself because when He is real, I am accepted and affirmed in Him. When I trust, one day at a time, His presence is real and it is better than anything I would choose for myself. When the time is right the next step will be revealed. I am being prepared. I can stop trying to manipulate outcomes. Good things will happen when the time is right, and they will happen naturally. I can let go and Trust HIM.
Philippians 4:19 “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”