Roadblocks and Reassurances

Please take a moment to pray for Garren Janes and his family. His dad's most recent post from his blog will be linked here as long as Garren needs our prayers. http://geoffreyjanes.blogspot.com/2011/02/monday-february-14-2011-900pm.html

I think it would be nice if the bbelieving phase would just be easy, with no troubles. I mean there's a famine phase and a death phase so it seems only right to have the believing phase be a piece of cake. But it's not. There are roadblocks!

Lysa wrote about something near and dear to my prayers at times, change the circumstances! I have prayed for God to change the circumstances so many times, to just move that mountain. But time and time again I have come to realize the circumstance didn't need to change. I did!

Lysa asked the question, "so why doesn't He?" Why doesn't He just move that annoying person to a new job, a new house, a new planet! How about that nagging pain He just takes it away. Why doesn't He just instantly heal the heart break of a relationship ending? Why, why, why! Lysa answers it like this, "the answer is that He loves us too much to leave us the way we are."

We tend to not see us as the one who needs changing, but we do. Until I become like Christ I will always need to be the one changing. Does that other person or situation? Yes, but it reminds me of how the lion Aslan responds to questions about others. He says that is their story. I do not have to worry about anyone else's story. That's God's job and He does it the best!

So in the believing phase there are roadblocks, there are frustrations and distractions. "You are not being sidetracked," Lysa. She reminds me that it is God's way, His plan. Now are there roadblocks, walls, mountains in other phases? Yes, but somehow in the believing phase it seems a bit easier to know that it isn't a big NO! from God. I guess it is easier in phase to know it's a growth opportunity. That doesn't make it easy, heart work is never easy, but there is a peace in believing God is using it for His glory and to grow me.

Lysa quotes Hosea 10:12 and then adds her thoughts to it. "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and showers righteousness on you."

Here's it again with Lysa's additions, "Sow for yourselves righteousness {right choices that honor God even when you don't feel like it}, reap the fruit of unfailing love {love for the lovely and unlovely alike}, and break up your unplowed ground {whether that be the blockades in your driveway or blockades in your heart}; for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes {and He most certainly will} and showers {more than you could ever hope for or imagine} righteousness on you." (She tells a blockaded driveway story in this chapter.)

So continue to know, to believe, in this phase that God is in control and He has given you a promise and He is faithful to accomplish it and prepare you along the way to receive it.