For many years, I wondered why I had been born when I was. I found myself feeling like a person born in the wrong time. I would think that I should have been born when life was slower and you spent your time on the farm. Of course, my brother would quickly tell me that if I had trouble with cooking NOW, how would I have handled things if I would have had to cut off the chicken’s head, pluck its feathers, cut it up, then fry her up for supper. He made his point. It still did not stop me from thinking at times that God had gotten my life wrong.
In recent months, the Lord has taken me on a new path in the journey of my life. This was one I did not intend to take - nor did I see it coming. He took me on a journey to understand MY STORY. He wanted to make it very clear that I was born when I was born for a reason and for what purpose I was born. He wanted me to understand that He has been there through it ALL and began showing me details of MY STORY I had actually gotten all wrong.
At the end of last school year, I was empty. I was fully and completely exhausted mentally and physically. The Lord had allowed some things in my life to help me see that my thoughts about MY STORY were actually not as I saw them to be in my mind’s eye. He revealed that I had been thinking I should be writing MY STORY, but in actuality,
HE WAS - and IS.
HE WAS - and IS.
When I was so weary, the Lord led me to a book entitled Empty. Living full of faith when life drains you dry ~ by Cherie Hill. After that, the Lord led me to read BE Still. Let Jesus Calm Your Storm also by Cherie Hill.
In the first book, Cherie Hill takes you on the journey of the life of the woman at the well in John 4. She brought out how Jesus “must needs go through Samaria” - He had to talk to her. He knew all about her but still gently led her to the Living Water. It is a beautiful picture of the grace and love of our Lord. Jesus was already there before His body was. Then, He was there lovingly and patiently waiting for her!! Her story fills almost the entire chapter of John 4 yet we still don’t know her name other than she was a Samaritan - someone despised by the Jews - and a woman who had many husbands and living with one who was not. But Jesus knew her, loved her, and was waiting. He was already there. She came to fill her empty waterpot with water but what she left with … after she “left her waterpot” was a filling of the Living Water and His truth.
The next book, Be Still…., was based in Mark 4:35-41. This book and my Bible study for the summer, Missing Pieces by Jennifer Rothschild, collided and taught me much. Here the disciples were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee with Jesus - and there came up a great storm. Jesus sent His disciples into that ship knowing full well there was storm coming. He also got in the boat with them. One thing that was pointed out to me in my studying of this passage was Mark 4:36 “they took him even as he was”. They took Jesus as He was into the boat, but they didn’t accept the outcome of Who he SEEMED to be when the storm came. They questioned whether He was even caring what was happening to them. Instead of becoming angry with them for immediately not believing, Jesus rebuked the WIND and the storm ceased and it was great calm. After He calms the storm is when he asks where was their faith.
Finally, the Lord kept placing Psalm 139 in front of me - repeatedly!! I began to read it over and over again. It is such a familiar passage of Scripture but the Lord was showing me through this Psalm that familiarity caused me to miss what He has wanted me to know all along. I went through and circled every personal pronoun in the passage - and it opened my eyes further. (I challenge you to do the same....) He wove together all of the reading He sent my way to reveal these truths:
I am just like the woman at the well. I thought MY waterpot was sturdy, but it could crack and leak. It was not as dependable as I thought. I still believed some of Satan’s lies I had held on to from very young and how I thought the Lord wasn’t truly there during certain times of my life. But the Lord was there through all of it. The Lord was there lovingly and patiently waiting for me to reveal that MY waterpot was needing to be emptied of myself and the lies I still believed needed to be set down so that I might put all of the Living Water in the Water pot that would never crack - the Lord Himself.
I am just like the disciples in the boat. I have said often that I had “taken Jesus as He was” just like verse 36 in Mark 4 states, but I really hadn’t. I found out I still was doubting His goodness in my past storms and that He wasn’t caring that I perished. I realized He was in the boat with me, but wasn’t recognizing the fact that HE KNEW THE STORM WAS COMING AND SENT ME THROUGH IT ANYWAY. I never fully comprehended He was already there.
And I forgot to take Him as He was.
To take Him as He IS.
I let faith go away and put my own thoughts in its place.
I am learning now to be more like Psalm 139 shows.
The Lord already has searched me and known me. I cannot get away from Him. I love verse 5 now - “He has enclosed me behind and before and laid His hand upon me.” Nothing that has happened in my life has happened by chance or without Him already knowing it’s coming. Psalm 139:16 has also become precious to me: “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” He was already there before my life began.
HE. WAS. ALREADY. THERE.
It seems like something I should have grasped long ago in my Christian walk, but the Lord knew that too. I was not taking God's truth for what it was - I was going on the familiarity of the knowledge already there from childhood. Now, it has become PERSONAL. Just as the Samaritan woman had to take Him as He was when He told of her past; just as the disciples in the boat had to personally experience Jesus as He IS while in that boat and gain a deeper knowledge of Him through the storm, so has He done the same for me.
Jesus had to empty me of myself in ways I didn’t realize, so I could take Him as He is and allow Him to fully search me, know me, and lead me.
This is MY STORY.
It is one of a Savior who loves me so much He comes finding me. One who loves me so much He calms my storms even when I doubt Him. One who encloses me in behind and before. One who knew all about me when yet I was unformed in my mother’s womb - and knew all about my life. HE IS ALREADY THERE - but I must allow Him to empty myself of ME, set down my waterpot of my own thoughts, take Him as He is - and willingly allow Him to search me, know me, try me. As He works in my heart He is leading me in HIS everlasting way. In that I must trust He holds MY STORY in His precious, nail-scarred hands.
This song has become a favorite of mine - especially knowing what the Lord has recently shown me. I especially love the end of this video. Enjoy:
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