Been Thinkin' Bout Thinkin'....

Not gonna lie been drawing a blank the last couple days.  Looks like it might just be more rambling…

I’ve been thinking a lot about life in general.  I look back at how my life used to be and thoughts I used to have about the future.  There was a time when I had the next 9 years of my life all planned out.  Then God stepped in and ruined all my plans.  Oh how grateful I am now that it happened.

I think back to a specific time when I it hit me that all my plans really were ruined.  It was around the time when I finished my associate’s degree, knew that I shouldn’t move to Italy and do culinary school, yet I had no idea what to do next.  For the first time in my life I hadn’t the slightest idea what was next, let alone 3-5 years down the road, and it was terribly frightening.  I mean literally frightening.  I was so used to coming up with my own plans and my own agendas and knowing exactly what would happen; yet now I was faced with the knowledge that God had a specific plan and calling for me.  I understood soon after being saved that the most vital thing I could do to please God was to love Him and to let Him actually be God in my life.  That meant giving up my mediocre agenda for His awesome agenda.  So long story short, I had something of a mental breakdown.  Then I just said “forget it,” and ran with it.  And really it was that simple of a decision. 

It’s funny though because I’ve been doing that ever since.  I guess the closer I get to finishing my time at Rhema the more I begin to think about what’s up ahead.  Yet now it’s different.  Now, I don’t want to know; not until I need to.  I’m so fascinated with how God orchestrates changes.  I think about the verse in Song of Solomon,

“Awake, O north wind,
      And come, O south!
      Blow upon my garden,
      That its spices may flow out.
      Let my beloved come to his garden
      And eat its pleasant fruits.”

It speaks of the consummation of the marriage but it’s also her accepting both the winds of adversity (the north, cold wind), and the winds of blessing (the south, warm wind).  It was a complete letting go of everything with the understanding that it would produce something: the spices would flow out. 

I mean to be perfectly honest, I could care less what happens.  Well… not in the sense of being indifferent towards it, but in the sense that I actually trust God.  It’s one thing to accept Christ as Savior, but there comes a point when every Christian must accept Him as Lord too.  I decided shortly after my salvation that I had done a pretty cruddy job being Lord of my life and figured if He really knew what He was doing, then I should probably just let Him take care of it.

Unfortunately it’s more than just my plans He wants Lordship over.  I don’t really know what it is about human nature to cling to the useless, but I’m finding the more I can kill the fleshly nature, the more accepting spirit nature can step in to place.  C.S. Lewis said it best, "The natural life] knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that." 

This brings me to some good ol’ Waterdeep…

“Think I’ll give up my control,

Because I’ve always tried to shake life by throat

Always hiding from the unknown

Always thinking it’s not time yet to move on…”

Waterdeep - Hold On

I think next time I’ll talk about the whole heaven thing since it would make this post awfully long.