This morning I listened to a podcast on dysfunctional relationships. It was HEAVY stuff. It’s so easy for me to forget how “crazy” people can be in their mindset and beliefs and the way they function. How “off” they can be in their character. I keep forgetting. And instead I listen to the deceitfulness of my own heart. I listen to my emotions and desires and feelings which are all skewed and not based on the whole picture. Not based on fact. These feelings are hopelessly tainted with idealism and perfectionism that simply do not exist. This podcast was a great reminder that only Yeshua knows the thoughts and intents of a person’s heart. Only He knows each person before they are in their mother’s womb and knows their comings and goings as shared in Psalm 139. That is why He must make the choice for who I end up with. Because His choice is based upon His limitless knowledge of the inner being through and through. He knows me through and through. And contrary to what my ego tells me, He knows me much better than I know myself.
When living single it is easy to only see the waiting (especially when you are waiting in multiple areas of your life) and the desire and the obedience. It is easy to focus on that one side of the coin and be ignorant to what God is keeping you from. I know that God is keeping me from making the same mistakes my ancestors made with their choices in men. I know He is keeping me from idolatry of men, sex before marriage, abusive men, dysfunctional relationships, etc… I know this now being on the other end of my obedience. I did not know these things before. I only knew Abba Father said “no”. Again. But my obedience (as selfish as my motives were for obeying, and as long as it took me to get there) offered me TIME to mature. It offered me time to change. It offered me time to not only grow in faith and trust in God, but to be like Him.
To see like Him.
To think and choose like Him.
When I ran into my ex 6 months after the break up, it was hard and I had to get out of his presence. Being there was Hard. Leaving was HARD. I sat in my car in tears, shaken. Why did I have to keep going through this??? I had already given him up, why did I have to give him up again? I could sense Holy Spirit’s response. God did not just want me to obey like some brainless zombie under His control; He wanted me to AGREE. He wanted me to have His heart about the situation.
He wanted me to want what He wanted.
He is changing me so that I want what He wants. So that these tests and trials do not become these traumatic events that almost take me under. So that He is the thing I am clinging to the most in the midst of the storm.
It is His love and patience that keeps me on this journey moving forward. When I don’t want to. When I want to quit. When the hurt is too great and my emotions are too high. He intervenes and brings strength and encouragement to keep going.
And then uses my weaknesses for His glory.
SHALOM
