God provided Tyler with a job. Two jobs, in fact. What a blessing! He is moving out of his house in August, and into an apartment. He called me yesterday explaining all the upcoming plans. You could hear the excitment in his voice. The readiness and peace he had about all the change taking place.
And, in my mind when I pictured the future, I always thought about how excited I would be! How awesome the new life would be! How "prepared" I would be for those moments when EVERYTHING changed! But, for some reason, there was no excitment, no grand emotion of a, "this is it" type moment, no. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I WAS SCARED! As the words were coming out of his mouth, I thought, Lord this is not how I pictured this! This is not what my dreams of my future life look like! Let me note that Tyler's plans are NOT bad plans, I was not scared because I knew that his choices were something outside of God's will. I was scared because they are so INSIDE God's will and God's planning and timing!
I know that sounds bizarre! Because my whole life I have been taught to not be afraid of God's timing or plans for you, because they are the BEST timing and planning for your life! BUT, my selfish nature took over. And, this is not how I had planned for it to go! I have prayed for Tyler, and prayed that God do amazing things in his life, and that he ordain people, and places, and events in his life that might lead him to where God wants him to be. And, when God answered those prayers, I was scared.
My first instinct after being fearful was, "Shame on you! You should be excited about this!" And I believe that instinct was right! Why are we so afraid of God's BIGGER PLANS? Why do we constantly hold onto what we thought/ or think our life should be like? And why are we scared when God steps into to our life and shakes things up? I believe it is because of one of Satan's greatest lies, "God can not be trusted." Satan has convinced us that God can not be trusted. Wow! I think this is so profound, and SO true! This is the root of why we hold onto things we know we should give up for the Lord. This is why we don't give 100% of ourself to His ways! This is why we get mad at God when he changes things in our life! This is why we get scared when our future plans don't turn out the way WE had pictured them.
So God has been challenging me on that! So many places in the bible it gives us the promise that God CAN BE TRUSTED. It gives us examples of the blessings that come from trustig Him and being obedient to the things he asks us to do! So we know that Satan has lied to us. So for me, I am learning to open my eyes and believe the TRUTH!
One verse that God showed me this week is in Isaiah relates to my exact situation,
"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?..."
God spoke straight to me! "Madison, forget how things used to be, stop holding onto what you thought should work out, I am doing NEW things! Here they come! Trust me."
And last night, I had another confirmation through a bible study. Andie Jackson, taught middle school through high school girls about dating relationships. We talked about Proverbs 31, and how we should seek after our identity in the Lord, and not in our husbands or future husbands. And in Proverbs 31, there is a verse that SCREAMED at me last night. It says,
"She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come." (verse 25)
The woman of noble character, she LAUGHS at the days to come! Andie touched on this by saying that most of us when we think about the future we turn into "little stress-balls." And I agree 100%! But what God is saying is that, as women, we should be trusting the Lord SO much with our future, that we can laugh or have joy when thinking about the future, or the days to come! What a GREAT challenge! Especially for me! To trust the Lord so much that even though our plans are falling apart in front of our face, we can laugh, because we know that our Maker is in control and he is planning something only for our best, and something that will only bring us closer to Him! Ok, now THAT is something to be excited about!
Signing off with a smile!
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