She Dances Over Graves

Patience is indeed a much needed virtue, especially in a culture that measures everything by the speed at which it delivers gratification to our hungry souls.  As women in such a world, this presents a great dilemma in our spiritual development: do we stay the course God has given us, or do we change lanes and seek to find the quicker, easier, and often less painful route? As we wrestle with this question (and I believe we do so daily in a myriad of ways), I’d like to share something with you that I discovered over the weekend.

I was presented with an opportunity last week which required me to submit a resume. (Of course, I practiced what I’ve been preaching and prayerfully considered the opportunity before just walking through the door that was before me. And honestly, in my own estimations, it didn’t seem like an opportunity I could afford to take. But God said otherwise, which goes to show the incredible value of leaning not on our own understanding and instead trusting and obeying God in everything…)

I haven’t had to submit a resume for twenty years! I wasn’t quite sure that I would even be able to pull enough evidence together to make myself sound qualified for the opportunity I’d been given.

So I took a deep breath, prayed for God’s help, and went for it!  I trusted that if the opportunity was from God, the grace to do what was required – including create a resume out of twenty years of not really working outside of home and church – would be made available to me.  When it was time to look at the finished product, I found tears of amazed gratitude welling up in my eyes because suddenly the value of simple obedience became visible and took the shape of something I couldn’t see along the way.

Twenty years ago, God spoke to me in a boardroom meeting and I realized that I was in the wrong business.  In my early twenties, I walked away from a lucrative career in marketing and sales for little more than a God-given desire to do something that changed lives. At the time, I wasn’t even a Christian, in the truest sense of the word.  But I knew, as I sat in that meeting, that I was created for more, and somehow I said yes to that.

Over the years, that yes has cost me many “great” opportunities.  As God has drawn me deeper in my faith journey and in relationship with Him, I have had to say no to or walk away from jobs that seemed so perfect and promising.  I have had to submit myself to work that was sometimes grueling and painful – not to mention void of recognition or reward – and I’ve had to do things that didn’t always make sense to me.  I’ve had to trust that, even when I couldn’t see the finish line, and wondered if I had somehow missed the turn I was supposed to take and gotten lost in nowhere land, God was still in control.

I’ve learned the value of staying the God-given course by staying put until I know that I know that I know He is calling me to take a step in another direction.  This has meant enduring some of the hardest seasons of my life.  It has meant weariness that is bone-crushing.  It has meant being still when I am provoked to run, or to reach for something that looks and feels so much easier or better.  It has meant choosing to believe, day after day, that God’s ways are higher than my own, and that His plans are better than mine. It has meant allowing my life to be shaped entirely by His direction, rather than my own desires.

This weekend, as I looked over my completed resume, I saw my years of trusting obedience in a very obscure path materialize into a perfect preparation for a God-given opportunity in just the right season.  I didn’t know, but He knew, that every yes and every turn and every long, hard stretch of terrain were preparing me for this very moment.  Truly, the resume God has given me is impressive!  And the only credit I can take for that is the humble admission that I have stayed where He’s placed me all these years (which is, in all honesty, more the product of His grace than my own grit).

I know there is so much more ahead of me.  This is not my finish line, but it has been an incredible opportunity to pause and take in the view from where I stand.  And I’ve been graciously gifted with the revelation that He has always been faithful to prepare me and to lead me in right path – the path He has created for me.

If you’re feeling a bit lost today, or uncertain of your past, present and/or future, know that trusting God and saying yes to His guidance will eliminate the need for worry.  He is able to position you for great things, and He is in the process of preparing you even now. It is so worth the wait to be where you are, and to finish what He’s given you to do so that you will be ready for the next thing, when He brings you to it.

Woman of Breakthrough, stay the course.  Is there something God has instructed you to do and you’ve abandoned it?  Go back and finish!  Anyone can start a race, but the reward is in finishing the course. Trust His faithfulness to keep you, and expect to see more than you could ever imagine for yourself as you entrust yourself to a faithful, powerful God!

{Photo images courtesy of http://www.pixabay.com}