Sometimes God is just so real and in my face. How can I ignore him when I hear him speaking to me directly? This past week has been especially hard for me. I feel like I am lost, going in circles. It’s like, “I’ve been here before.” So what am I doing here again? Am I moving forward, or taking steps backwards?
I know I am not going backwards. If I was, I would be in a bigger mess of messiness. Thank God he has delivered me from self-pity, low self esteem, rejection, loneliness, heartache, doubt, etc…. Its all there. God has shown me that just because I am not moving forward to the next step doesn’t mean I am losing what he has taught me and I have gained. I may be stopped at a point so he can speak in greater depths. I can’t always be moving liking lightening. Then He wouldn’t be able to change my heart and my character. It’s okay to take a rest, slow down, enjoy the moment.
I am at a point where God has stopped me from passing by and ignoring the deeper issues. For so long I have ignored my broken heart. There are so many things I kept so locked up, safely locked away from anyone’s reach, sometimes, even my own. And now God, in his gentle, mysterious way, is drawing them out. Oh how it hurts to have wounds reopened, but oh how great to have the healing waters poured over. At the moment, I really want to shut down again and close the gate, lock every door and run! But I cannot…… I feel at peace in the midst of this messiness. This is where I am supposed to be.
Push through and see the fruit of the labor. My Pastor has talked about us being salmon in his past two sermons. Salmon are silly fish who swim upstream against the current. There must be something wrong with them!! It would be easier to go with the flow and lay your eggs downstream. BUT NO. They persist on struggling upstream. When they finally reach the goal and lay their eggs, they die. All that work and now they lay to rest. I love how my pastor put it. We ,as Christians, should be swimming upstream in our walk with God and through life. We face struggles everyday. But in the end we are made stronger because we die, die to our flesh. We die to our flesh and become more like Christ. Our lives are buried in Christs. We are found in him. I love it!
I am in that place of struggling to fight the current, to continue traveling upstream, against the current. Against the current of conformity to this world and the self desires of me.
Thank you father for guiding me upstream towards you.
My last words are, “I am glad to be a salmon.”
