Where in the Bible does God say that I need to do everything by myself, with my own strength and knowledge and stamina? Ye shall figure it out alone and probably fail. Nowhere. Not a verse. Instead, God tells me to depend on Him for everything!

One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. In all of my ways I am to submit to the Lord and He will move in my life and guide me according to His plan.

I am only to be in obedience to Him and submit to Him, staying close to Him in all things. God handles the rest. He will provide and I will accept and abide and continue to live in deference and reverence to Him, allowing Him more and more room in my hours and moments. My life will become less complicated, more free and more beautiful.

Depending on God doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do. It means that my work and His work become more clearly defined. I learn to move, not apart from God but with God.

For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Psalm 91:11

 

 

One day at the park, I stopped to watch three children joyfully climb up on the empty stage of the amphitheater. Delighted to have the whole thing to themselves, they huddled together to prepare an impromptu show for their dad, who laid back on the grass to watch them.

With grins across their faces, they began the performance. Just then another group of children came over the hill and made a beeline for the stage. A raucous and garrulous group, they had no idea what was unfolding and didn’t seem to care. As they commandeered the stage, the first three kids immediately shrunk back to the edge and watched them.

Their moment in the spotlight was over. They relinquished it to a louder voice. I thought about the many times I’ve done the same in my life. How many of those were works of the enemy interjecting some fearful thought or threat into my mind to which I unwittingly deferred?

Listening for the Holy Spirit’s voice within attunes me to the direction God wants me to go. It continually bolsters me to be who God made me to be and to perform the work of my heart—the work God put in me to do.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

The world isn’t meant to work without God. Sure, He has put a design in me and in everyone, but it will eventually go awry without Him.

I worked in a floral design studio once. I had been praying for a job, feeling no direction, when a friend called and told me about an opening. I had never done floral design; like art, it intimidated me a bit. I jumped at the job.

After a few months of training, I was given my own list. Hundreds of arrangements were created in the studio every day and designing them were some true artists. Their arrangements had a certain brilliance mine didn’t seem to have. I loved the job but I struggled.

One day I confessed quietly, “Floral design does not come naturally to me.” An answer bounced back at me in my spirit, “Then let it come supernaturally!” From then on, I included God in every bud vase, bouquet and submerged orchid.

I didn’t stay at the studio long. I appreciated the experience but I realized I needed to do what does come naturally for me—writing. In this also, I try to become the cloud thru which God moves, to embrace work as more than just than a vase of flowers or a book of printed paper, but to hold God in each petal and page, yielding to His perfect plan. 

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.                       Psalm 127:1

Sometimes I feel like I’m not enough.  I speak to myself harshly with humiliating, critical commentary. Sometimes I feel I need to be more and end up creating a worse situation or simply making a fool of myself.

This can lead to a depressing place in my mind. I start to believe that I am a failure and have no hope of ever doing anything well. I may retreat and hide and give up for a while. There is no reason for this chain of events because God is with me.

The other day a member of my family misplaced something important. He was fuming around the house, filled with anxiety. I have felt this many times, along with anger at myself for letting it happen. This time I prayed. I asked God to help and then I just began meandering around, going where the Spirit led. In a matter of moments, I found the thing on a lawn chair in the yard. It feels wonderful to allow God to show me a peaceful way instead of relinquishing my grace and dignity.

God provides me breath and peace in my spirit. The Holy Spirit quietly guides me and is alive in me filling me with assurance. I can take steps slowly and calmly knowing that God is directing all that’s around me—even if it looks like sheer chaos. God gives me exactly the right attitude, exactly the sufficient grace.

Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

I used to doubt God’s plans. I wondered if maybe my ideas were better than the ones God had for me. Or perhaps I just couldn’t imagine that God had plans for me at all. Perhaps He was just silently watching me, grading me as I figured things out. Or didn’t.

No. He would not give me life and leave me alone to figure it out, any more than I would do that to my own child. In everything, God provides a framework and order — in a clam, in a hurricane and in a stratum of earth.  And He put one in me.

His word shows me how to have a relationship with my Father so I can glorify Him by using His wonderful order and gifts to His delight—and mine! He has plans for me and I can align my life to those plans and create within them!

There is freedom in God’s order. He doesn’t need me to redo what He’s already done. I believe He wants me to express my love for Him and this life He’s given me by valuing my talents and gifts and using them to create more beauty and goodness around me. Celebrating what God has intended and provided for me will always lead to a surprise harvest of more blessings.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

I have looked for love my whole life. When I got it, I sometimes didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know how to fully except it. Or give it. Something stood in the way.

I don’t feel that way in my relationship with the Creator of the Universe. I don’t have to worry about being too selfish with His love, He has an eternal flow. I don’t have to worry about giving it back to Him perfectly, He is forgiving and patient.

In fact, nothing stands in the way of my experiencing love with others either. If I fail to experience or give love, it is because I have failed to include God in the relationship or circumstance. It is the presence of God that brings the love.

Instead of insisting that love comes into my life exactly how I assume it should, I am learning to widen my love gates. On these walks, it is a fragrant wooded path . A finely crafted young turtle at my foot. Migrating geese sliding en masse across a pond before me. A message written in chalk proclaiming God’s love. A storm of snow.
What God’s hands have created has been formed for me. Beholding that with every step, I accept and am refreshed by an ultimate love.

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1 John 4:16

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is about Lazarus. When this man, known by Jesus, became sick, his sisters sent word to Jesus to come heal him. Jesus did not go for two more days and by then, Lazarus had died.

When Jesus arrived no one could understand why He hadn’t come sooner or why he hadn’t just healed Lazarus from afar.  He wept when he saw their sadness, He loved them so.  But Jesus had a plan. He always does. He went to Lazarus’ tomb and brought him back from the dead.  Jesus’ plan was to show the people the glory of God.

The glory of God is the most important thing in all of life. In all of our situations, in every mundane act, every great feat. It is all for the glory of God. And every miracle blessed upon us points to the glory of God. God wants to be glorified in our lives, to be held up higher than anything else.

Jesus performed miracles on earth to bring people closer to God. He showed compassion, healed brokenness and pointed always to the One in heaven. When I wait for my Lord’s miraculous response to my pleas, I remember that His work in my life will bring glory to God and will serve to bring others and myself closer to Him. For this is the reason for miracles.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

I’ve always believed that, though God  attends to everyone in the world and every hair on each head, He still has time for me. My Grammy prayed with me every night when I was very small and there was no doubt that God was listening closely. This belief has remained with me to this day. God was in her bedroom in that little house by the bay and He has been with me ever since.

Early one morning on my walk, I saw a bee buzzing from flower to flower, not missing one. Nature flows with perfect balance according to God’s plan.  Pollination for flowers, nectar for bees, honey for me, my garden for flowers.  A honey bee is no more attentive to his work than his Maker is to His. God provides for the bee and the flower and for me.  I grow in faith that my God shines upon me and provides for me always.

You visit the earth and cause it to overflow; you greatly enrich it; the stream of God is full of water; You prepare their grain. You prepare the earth. Psalm 65:9

Stubbornness will get me nowhere. It only gets me going in circles, doing the same thing over and over again hoping to get my will. Insisting on receiving only what I want blocks me from God’s will and all of the beautiful things He has planned for me.

I hadn’t been open to Him on my prior walks. I didn’t care about the birds or the splash of the koi when they flopped awkwardly out of the pond (for reasons I still don’t understand.) I marched around that park, blocking everything out because my life had become unmanageable and I didn’t think anything could help me besides running away as fast as I could, blasting a different reality into my ears as I went.

When I removed my earbuds on the first day of my walks with God, it wasn’t only so I could concentrate on my conversation with God. Removing them was, in effect, removing my will. It was removing my insistence to hear only what I wanted to hear.

I began to listen, to settle enough to hear God speak. I heard the Holy Spirit within me and I experienced His creation speaking all around me. There is a catbird at the park who chatters at me incessantly.  I want to know what he’s saying too.

Make me to know your ways oh Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. Psalm 25:4-5

I can suffer pain doing it my way, and create more pain, or I can experience pain acting in obedience to God’s way and set forth a well-spring of blessings. Can I trust God to take me to the best place? Yes, always.

My natural inclination is to find the way that appears easiest and least painful today. Sometimes I choose to avoid consulting with God and His word because I think it will require of me more than I want to do, a loftier behavior than I feel like performing. The high road is called that for a reason. It is the road that will lead to higher things. And that is what I want in life. Higher things.

To get there, I need to trust God. I need to realize that my way is never the best way.  Only God’s way is the high road. My way doesn’t lead to the most excellent. Only God’s. My job is only to trust and obey.

Three things are needed for me to remain in hopeful expectation. I must believe that God is supreme. I must be willing to feel uncomfortable. I must be willing to be patient. When I move according to God’s will and wait in faith for His response, I come to see every time that I can always keep my faith in God.

For the word of the Lord is right and true; He is faithful in all He does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of His unfailing love. Psalm 33:4-6