Looking for a Ladder, Day 23

This morning I was praying for Guatemala and desiring so adamantly to return. I think my favorite thing to do while I was there was to pray. I remember vividly the visions God gave me while I walked along monte flor praying. I saw an amazing future ahead for the people of Chichicastenango. I saw the orphan homes that would be built on monte flor. I saw freedom, joy, peace, fruits of the spirit in abundance for the beautiful people who live there. As I thought back to these visions and the hope and the joy that flooded my heart while the Lord revealed them to me I remembered my unrelenting faith for those things to occur. I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the things I saw would definitely come to pass. As I prayed this morning I paused for a second to ask God, “why don’t I have faith like that here, at home, everyday?” In an instant I had my answer.

Once while I worshiped I saw a window in the sky. Everything I’d ever longed for, dreamed of, and hoped for was piled behind the window. In that moment, viewing my dreams trapped behind a window I couldn’t reach I felt so helpless and destitute. I asked God why, “why are all these out of my reach?” He very clearly said, “I have shown you these things so that you may know what I am going to do for you. Do not focus on the blessings, focus on Me.” Such relief and release was realized all at once. I tried desperately for sometime after that to keep my focus on God. However in doing so I was always thinking about my blessings, thinking about concentrating on Him and how that would bring about blessing. I missed the point. I was still trying to reach the window, only now I was trying to reach it by “working” on my relationship with God.

While I was praying in Guatemala I was focusing on God, just talking to Him, and listening to Him, and my heart was positioned to Love. I wasn’t asking for anything specifically. I wasn’t hoping for anything specifically. I was just hanging out with God and extending my heart in Love for the people of Guatemala. While I spent time with Him He showed me His plans, the things He was going to do. I wasn’t having to operate in faith for something I was desiring, or a plan I was proposing to God. It was easy to believe that God would do what He planned to do. That was my answer. At home when I’m looking at those things behind the window and trying so hard to reach them however I can think of, it’s difficult to have faith because I’m trying to accomplish my own plans, my own way, and I’ve pretty much taken God out of the picture. Sure I tell Him what I want and then I ask Him to help me, but He and I both know that as soon as I’ve completed that step I start searching for ladder so that I can do it myself.

I love LOVE love Isaiah 55:7-12. The Lord makes it SOOO clear that He has everything under control. His plans are perfect. His ways are awesome. When His plans are in work the mountains and the hills break forth into singing and all the trees of the field clap their hands. It very clearly says that our ways aren’t God’s ways. So, I think I need to let Him work. I think I need to look away from that darn window. And I think faith isn’t quite so complicated as I’ve been making it out to be. I mean God’s gonna do what He’s gonna do. I can’t really ask for more than that.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. "For My thoughts [are] not your thoughts, nor [are] your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper [in the thing] for which I sent it. "For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap [their] hands.
Is. 55: 7-12