Have you ever heard the voice of God so clear you couldn't ignore it?
Yeah, me either. Maybe you have heard his audible voice. That's awesome! I really do believe you've heard it if you say you have. But for those of us who haven't... ...have you ever heard the voice of God so clear you couldn't ignore it? But you weren't hearing anything? Yeah. I have too. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it doesn't quickly leave my usually forgetful mind. The most recent time, I was in Estes Park camping for a week with my fam. It was probably the fourth or fifth day, and it had rained every afternoon so far. And not just a light mountain sprinkle, but a full-on thunderstorm. Every day. Hail sometimes included. Oh, yes, I was excited. Many of you have heard me complaining via social media about the lack of thunderstorms - nay, any rain at all - out here on the West Coast. California is indeed in a drought, people. I've seen it with my own dry eyeballs. However, we were tent camping. I won't go into the drama of that here. Ask my dad, he'll tell ya all about it. (Good ol' Butch. Bless you for enduring that week with even a nugget of dignity and sanity.) And on this particular day, I had just nestled in my hammock (with a mountain view, might I add), opened my journal, and tried to begin to get in some quiet time to still my restless heart. The sky immediately started to spit on me. Naturally, I prayed under my breath: "Please hold it off." Almost instantaneously, this was his response: "The mountain needs rain." It practically echoed in my chest. I wrote it down without thinking. In other words: "No." Have you ever heard God tell you flat out, "no"? Because he is gentle and kind and sympathizes with our weakness, it usually doesn't come out quite like that. But you probably still know when he's trying to get that point across. Despite his gentle response, I was kind of annoyed. Like, honestly? I was literally sitting down for the purpose of spending time with him. And he made it start to rain. (WAH.) Come on, dude. (Is referring to God as "dude" irreverent? Probably.) But I was particularly irritable that day. Had a particularly wandering mind and a particularly crabby disposition. Why wouldn't he grant my request to hold the rain off? I needed to find my FREAKIN' center. (Whatever that means.) But the mountain needed rain. I later found out that it hadn't rained a single drop the previous six weeks. And then the day we arrived, the skies let loose. "The mountain needs rain." In other words: "It's not all about you." This theme came into the light multiple times during my mountain stay. My sweet cousin Erika (wise beyond her years, bless her. If you're reading this, I love ya. You're my favorite. Don't tell the others.) spoke some spitfire truth about how we are one tree in a forest of millions. That's how we're meant to see our lives. Zoomed-out, big-picture stuff. God cares about the littlest tree, alright. You can be sure of that. But he cares about the forest, too. He has a grander story in mind. Of grandeur. Of unity. Of redemption. "The mountain needs rain." In other words: "I've got a better idea." I sought shelter in one of the aunt & uncles' campers and had conversations that lifted my chin and kept my tender heart dry. Sometimes we ask God for things that we are certain would be good for us. We're certain we're on the same wavelength with God. After all, we know ourselves and what we need better than anyone, right? Maybe. But maybe not. Because sometimes, despite our best intentions and our self-assured good interests, God still says, "The mountain needs rain." And we don't understand. And we won't. Maybe not for days, weeks, months, years, decades. Sometimes hours, when an Estes native informs you that they've been in a six-week drought. God has actually said "no" to me about quite a few things since I started this post-grad journey back in May. Things that I was certain he wanted for me. And though the gratefulness stings as it rises in my heart and often leaves an ache, I am so grateful that he did. I am so grateful for those "no's." Sometimes God's "no" is better than any other "yes" you could hear. But before I realized it was God speaking, it felt like rejection. It felt like hearing, "sorry, we picked someone better," over and over and over again. It felt like my plans were crumbling. It felt like I was doing something wrong because nothing was going right from where I stood. And, if I'm being totally honest, it felt like God was abandoning me. It was as if I chose the wrong path, so he dipped out. It sounded like this: "Sorry, kid. This mountain needs rain. Maybe if you woulda picked the right mountain, you'd have stayed dry." Can I tell you something I've needed to hear every single day? Can you promise to write it down, to remember it, to tell yourself when you forget? God does not dip out. Ever. In our life with God, we take right turns, left turns, u-turns. But as long as we are pursuing him every day, seeking his will, getting in his word, there are no wrong turns. Blatant sin? That's a wrong turn. You do the opposite of what God says in his Word to do and you are surely going the wrong way down a one-way. There might be that one door you keep trying to open, but it's locked. That's probably God saying "no." But let me tell you this: he won't even let you walk through a door he's not behind. What about when there are three open doors and you have to choose one? God's on the other side of all three. He's on the other side of the doors you can't even see yet. Take a deep breath. Let that sink in. There's another side to this whole thing that can't be ignored. Did you know that Satan loves to say "yes"? I hope you took that deep breath. Give me a minute to explain. Satan's favorite lie to tell is that he doesn't exist. His second favorite lie is that God isn't where you are right at this very moment. That he doesn't care. That he dipped out. That you're not worth it, that you're better off on your own anyways. Satan's favorite lie is to respond to your fears with a resounding "yes." "Yes, God has left you." "Yes, you're alone." "Yes, you screwed up and you can't re-do this one." "Yes, you deserve to feel this shame about your sin." Pardon my French, dear friends, but we've got to cut that shit out. One of the hardest lessons I'm learning is that I have to actively fight against these lies, these "yesses" from Satan. Do you know that Satan has specific yesses he tries to tell you, usually in moments when God's trying to tell you an important truth? He doesn't just barrage you with random lies like, "you smell bad," or, "you suck at cooking." No. Satan isn't that shallow. Think about it. You know the lies that get stuck in your mind like deep splinters hidden beneath three layers of skin on the bottom of your foot. The recurring ones. The really dark ones, the ones that seem to attack your identity, trying to disintegrate you from the inside out. Those are Satan's lies. His yesses. So find them. And cut them out. Immediately. Do not gratify the enemy for one second by giving in and allowing them to fester. Cry out to Jesus when you are two weak to pull out the splinters. He has some pretty damn good tweezers, promise. Satan will try to affirm every untrue thing you believe about yourself. We need to counter his yesses with resounding no's that are straight from God himself. Whew. Take another deep breath with me. This is hard stuff. It's hard when you're dried out and bone-tired and puffy-eyed and ready to throw up your hands, pack it all up, and head home. But as people hard after Jesus' heart, we have to be willing to embrace God's no's and kick Satan's yesses to high hell. Because that's what Jesus did. The night before his brutal murder, he begged God to change his mind. To find another way. To spare him the unbearable suffering. Spoiler alert: God said "no." Jesus' response? "I will keep walking." And walk he did. All the way to the cross. For you. For me. What is God saying "no" to you about? What is Satan trying to say "yes" to you about? How can you learn to see God's "no's" as the gifts of grace that they are? How can you fight off Satan's "yesses" without giving in? I promise you, friend, because I know it from direct experience - God's "no" is so, so, SO much better than any "yes" anyone else can ever give us. And if that doesn't knock your socks right off, your socks are too tight. I want to leave you with a couple truths that will hopefully encourage you to keep walking. The first one is about being human. The second one is about being human, too. Here's the first one. It is okay to be disappointed when God says "no." It's okay to cry. To wail. To mourn what you feel you've lost. To cry out in anger, frustration, confusion, every other emotion. God can take it. More than that - he can feel what you're feeling. I had a very wise friend encourage me the other day with two things: 1) It is okay to mourn in seasons where God says "no." 2) Nothing is wasted in seasons where God says "no." In fact, when you're doing life with God, nothing is ever wasted. Nothing. Not even your worst day. Not even days like today, where it feels hard to get out of bed because there's not a lot to get excited about or too much to be anxious about. If today is one of those days where the only hope you have is in the fact that Jesus lived the perfect life you never could and died the perfect death so you could be in perfect communion with him and the Father and have his Spirit inside of you, today is better than any other day lived apart from that fact. So let Jesus cup your face in his hands and lift your head to heaven. He knows you're weak. He knows you're human, and he gives you permission to be just that. Here's the second truth. Your humanness doesn't last forever. God's toughest "no" - the one he told to his own Son the night before he was murdered, the one that caused his Son to humanly weep and sweat drops of his precious blood - led to the best "yesses" imaginable. Yes, death was defeated. Yes, Jesus rose from the grave. Yes, we are his forever. Yes, there will be a day when there will be no disappointment. There will be no struggle against the lies of Satan. There will be no devastating tide of human emotion. Yes, all of the nasty, dark, heavy, ugly parts of our humanness will be wiped away. So let's walk forward as people who know a good "no" and a bad "yes" when we hear one, as people who hope in the ultimate "yesses," the ones who come from the One whose "no's" are just as full of grace. "You taught my feet to dance upon disappointment, and I will worship you." -Amanda Cook, Heroes
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It's been eight weeks today - of living in a new city. of soaking up the new sun. of being roommates with my best friend. of new adventures and new relationships. of learning to trust Jesus in new ways. It's also been eight weeks today - of battling nearly constant anxiety. of waiting for the rain to come. of intense homesick- and people-sick-ness. of questioning if this was the right choice. of asking Jesus every day if he is still with me, even though every day he tells me he is. And exactly on this eight week marker, to the day, the rain has finally come. The Lord's promise to provide materialized, and I'm officially employed across enough hours each week to pay the bills. I don't have to worry where it's gonna come from or if I'm gonna have to pack it up and move back east in the next few weeks. But although my end goal has been met (for now), in no way has the process over the last eight weeks gone the way I expected or planned or wanted. It's been about a million times harder. But I will dare to say, in spite of myself, that it's been better. Because his ways aren't my ways. They're higher. Isaiah 55v9. Because what has happened to me will serve to advance the Best News. Philippians 1v12. Because this period of waiting - of wondering, of questioning, of fearing, of doubting - has equipped me to pass along the comfort I have received from the Lord to people who need it. 2 Corinthians 1v3-5. I'm so confident of these things today. But I had to convince myself of them almost every second up till now. Why is it that as soon as the rain comes, the fog - so thick and so stifling before - clears, and the memory of it almost vanishes? Oh, there are still questions, that's for sure. But the heavy weight of worry has been lifted, and I can't believe I spent multiple nights in full-on panic mode wondering how I was gonna make it work out here. His timing actually makes me chuckle and roll my eyes. I wish I could sarcastically punch God in the arm right about now. He knew that today would be the day where things would come together, where I would feel like I can finally settle down a little bit, nestle in. He knew he was going to come through, and he knew exactly how. And he knew what it would teach me along the way. So why can't I turn off the soundtrack of worry in my head that whirs during these seasons of waiting? In the wise words of the Closner sisters (go. listen. to. Joseph. now.) who have been getting me through the days and who paraphrased Matthew 6: "I don't need to worry 'bout tomorrow - all the work I need is what's at hand. I don't need to worry 'bout tomorrow - all the love I make is what will stand."
Here's the thing about not worrying that gets me: everything. I'm not too good of letting go of things, especially the things I can't really control in the first place. Because I want to control them. Ahem. You've probably heard this one before, but worrying is really a lack of trusting God. That's also the root of sin - thinking we know better. Yikes. I wish I was better at not sinning. That's where grace comes in. Because his power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12. Where would be the room for Jesus' perfection if I was all-sufficient, independent, able to figure it all out on my own all while never wavering in trust that he's got my back, front, and everything in-between? So you know what? (This is where you ask, "What, Wheeler?") Okay, fine. I'll tell ya. I'm going to shout out loud to the world today that I am content with my weaknesses, with my lack of trust, with my unanswered questions. Even if, in the back of my mind, I wish it would all go away. But I'm going to shout it out anyways. I'm gonna tell myself that it's all okay. Because I'm a work in progress. I'm just starting out, walking in his shadow-step. And if the last eight weeks have taught me anything, it's that this walk is a tough one. It's more like climbing a fourteener before sunrise than walking along the beach at sunset. Even if the next eight weeks are just as tough, I'll keep going. Keep climbing, because I know it will be worth it when I finally look up and remember he's always smiling, ready to take my face in his hands and tell me I'm never not his. This season of life feels like a lot of waiting most of the time. But at this point, I just wanna be wherever he is. And I know he's in the waiting more just as much as he's in the rain when it comes. If you're like me, you're a recovering worrier. Keep reading.
If you're not prone to worry, this one might not be for you. Actually, it probably still is. Keep reading. I went on a walk tonight. That's nothing out-of-the ordinary; I go for a lot of walks since the ocean is, um, less than ten minutes away on foot. Don't hate me. Someone laughed at me the other day because I live in one of the most beautiful places ever and yet I complain that there are no thunderstorms here. Can you tell my Midwestern roots run deep? The unusual part of this trek, though, is that an intersecting thought crossed my mind as I walked down the Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, somewhat along the lines of what my friend was saying. "Are you alive and awake to being here?" What's an intersecting thought, you ask? It's a thought that interrupts your current stream-of-consciousness. Some people believe it's a thought you didn't really come up with on your own. In other words, the Holy Spirit speaking? Perhaps. I have experienced a handful of these, when I quiet down enough to listen. Anyhow, that phrase actually takes me back to a song my Algebra 2 teacher taught us to keep us chugging along in the world of... whatever it is that we learned in junior year algebra. "Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic" To the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" Arranger: Unknown (potentially said algebra teacher) "I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic *clap clap* I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic *clap clap* I'm alive, awake, alert, I'm alert, awake, alive, I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic *clap clap*" We rolled our eyes then because we knew we were going to be forced to get back to solving quadratic equations (???) for the next thirty-five minutes. but I think Ms. Algebra 2 was onto something. The entire month and ten days I've been in San Diego, it's felt like a dream. But not really in an "oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I-get-to-live-here" kind of way. It's just fuzzy. It's like I can't really experience each day as it comes. I've been paralyzed by worry, fear, and general feeling of unsettled-ness. That kind of craving that could only be satisfied by people who know you deeply. I've learned that I'm an introverted extrovert. I know all this rest, this aloneness, this recharging is good for me, but damn do I miss my people. Sometimes the absence of all familiarity triggers a physical ache. I've been so caught up in my head, in these emotions that come in waves, in self-deprecation and doubt and pity, that I've forgotten to look around. I would say sixty percent of days I forget to be actively thankful for the place God has brought me to. One of the most beautiful places on the planet. Not only that, but I've allowed the darkness to creep in and dull my sense of purpose. My sense of passion. My longing to serve and to obey my call. To breathe breaths and take steps and pick up burdens so that others can breathe easier. I have allowed this season that feels "in between" to become a tool for the enemy to use against me. It doesn't have to be this way, but I've come to believe "that's just the way it is." No more. Tomorrow is a new day. Thank you Jesus, that your mercies are new every morning. That's one that I had to sticky-note on my mirror because it won't sticky-note in my brain and in my heart. Where are you dulled dimmed down? Where are you craving peace and comfort and settling for transition? On the other hand, where are you scrambling? Where are you digging for gold that's been dug up long ago? Where are you striving and running your lungs and soles thin? Where are you refusing to slow down, to sit before the Word, to allow the Light to give you life? The only motions of mine that has kept me going on the days where I want to pack it up and go home are my morning coffee dates with Jesus. I am fully aware of the kind of person I sound like right now, but I am unapologetic. If you haven't seen this video yet, please, take thirty minutes of your time to be encouraged by a nineteen-year-old that is probably wiser and more kickass than you. Sorry, not sorry. I don't care if she's from Duck Dynasty. Homegirl can preach it. My two points are simple: Are you alive and awake to where you are right now? It doesn't matter where it is. You might resent your current location or you might be basking in the glory of it all. Don't forget where the glory comes from, whether you see it in front of your eyes or wonder if it was ever there. Don't forget that the One who created glory - who created everything in the first place - also created you. He also created purpose, and meaning, and things that matter. Have you ever asked yourself what matters to you and why? If you haven't, do it. If you have, what are you doing about it? Where does your life and your light come from? Are you being fed enough so that when the Spirit speaks, you know what to listen for? Are you quieting your soul every single day to make space for the truth? Or are you settling for consuming a weekly worship service and saying a quick prayer before your head hits the pillow? It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing. If you're too busy to be fed, you're too busy. I learned this the hard way as a leader in my college ministry. You cannot be alive and awake and alert and enthusiastic if you are spiritually dead. Don't take it from me. Here's Paul: "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." --1 Corinthians 3:1-9 These people that Paul loved deeply, they weren't feeding themselves. They still wanted to just gulp down the easy stuff and be as mature as Paul and Apollos and all the other head honchos. But the evidence of their chronic immaturity was abounding - they compared themselves to one another and bragged and took sides and refused to focus on what was important to God. They wanted it their way, and they wanted things to be easy. Paul wasn't having it. When we're not digging through and uncovering the Word to find God's promises ourselves, we're settling. We're drinking baby formula and expecting to be able to function like adults. You can probably feel it. You get stuck in a constant cycle of comparison, self-pity, self-deprecation, doubt, exhaustion, jealousy, strife with those around you. Those are not marks of growth. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. Do you see these welling up in you? Even from time to time? Little marks of progress are tell-tale signs of growth. But don't dare to expect them without feeding yourself with the Light that gave our wretched, unrighteous human hearts the ability to possess these fruits in the first place. God gives the growth. So find where God is. There's a pretty good chance that no matter where you are, he's somewhere nearby. So how do we move forward into the Light after weeks of sitting in darkness? Do we walk "humbly" and somewhat shamefully forward, protecting ourselves in case the Light doesn't favor us? No. "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." --Hebrews 4:16 In other words, be bold; be alive; be awake - in the presence of the Lord, which is with you everywhere you go. |
Meet the writer.Hiya. Wheels, here. I enjoy all forms of espresso & days spent in the mountains of Colorado or the prairies of Kansas or the beaches of SoCal. Also, Royals baseball. Archives
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