A-ha moment of the year: Life is NOT linear so take the long way home and a field trip to the wilderness

"One of the things I learned I have learned working in the fitness industry is that fat loss/muscle gain is not linear.  Due to complicated body chemistry/physiology, life circumstances, etc. things happen and people's bodies do not change in a linear fashion.  Composition should follow a trend, but it is rarely linear.

Yesterday I was encouraging someone regarding setbacks that he had this past year.  I went on about how the road to the top of the mountain isn't linear and sometimes we have to take a field trip down to the valley.  I also talked about how setbacks are really learning experiences and growth opportunities.

Of course I believe this for everyone but myself.

So then yesterday I was listening to the good Bishop Jakes teach  Can God trust you with trouble and I heard my own words being repeated back to me and suddenly I had THE A-ha moment that summed up 2013.  The Bishop put it much better than I did.

Life is not linear.  It is paradoxical

Suddenly it all became clear.  All of my confusion, frustration, and disappointment is all because in my small minded intellectual perspective, I expect to do all the right things and then have the right outcome.  

In that line of thinking, there is no room for faith and miracles and there is also no room for exceedingly and abundantly.

2013:  The Year of  SAY WHAT!

The Good Bishop had SO much good teaching and points that I am not going to rehash all of them, but one of the things he said just about had me ready to church jog.

When God gives us things we don't understand, we have a tendency to want to back out.

*RAISES HAND and throws her Bible* This is me.  This whole story I'm telling is still being written.  I can't say the dots are connected, even though I believe in my spirit the dots are all connected.  I just don't understand it in the natural or know how it is going to play out.

 There are times when I'm tempted to back out of this journey.  For a fleeting moment I considered throwing the past 80 some odd days of the prayer challenge into the recycling bin because  in my intellectual mind it all seems so ridiculous.  

This entire year I have had these experiences that have made me exclaim: "SAY WHAT!!!"  I've talked about it on the blog and the main reason I didn't want to get involved was because I don't understand it. I've said it over and over again I like to know why things are happening and I want to know WHY. 

I am under the direction to keep going, so I'm going to keep on keeping on until God says STOP.

Just a glimpse

The Good Bishop also mentioned how the Lord will give us glimpses of His glory on the top of the mountain.  I want to talk more about this in its own blog post, but I'll introduce the concept here.  He said that we don't realize it, but we will have glimpses of where God wants to take us and then bring us back.  I believe we see those glimpses with our natural eyes and then process it through our eyes of faith.

This year I have seen glimpses of where God wants to take me and it's exciting but also scary.  I also began to wonder if this is why I was praying for things in my prayer time that made no sense to me.  I saw things with my natural eyes, but God kept laying things on my heart. I didn't understand where these things were coming from or why I was saying them. More than once without realizing it, I said the exact same prayer.

Take the Long way home...

When God delivered the Children of Israel from Israel, he did not lead them through the shortest route because he knew if they saw all what they had to face, they would want to give up and go back to Egypt

Exodus 13:17

God did not lead them through the land of the Philistines, although that was the most direct route from Egypt to the Promised Land. The reason was that God felt the people might become discouraged by having to fight their way through, even though they had left Egypt armed; he thought they might return to Egypt. Instead, God led them along a route through the Red Sea wilderness.

I'm so glad God is in charge because he knows me so well.  If I got all what he has for me right now and right away, then I would be discouraged at all what is going to come along with it.  He's given me glimpses of my assignment.

He knows that I was definitely NOT mature enough to handle all what's about to go down.

After one moment of revelation a few weeks ago, I said to myself and then I told my sister:  "I am going to have to grow up.  This isn't a game. It's real life and I've got to grow up".  After that I began to pray for wisdom because my intellectualism and my books aren''t going to help me with this.  Only God can help me.

So instead of my BOOM! BOOM! POW!!! testimony that I envisioned, it looks like we are going to be taking the long way home.  This is fine with me.  I think the longer it takes, the more faith will be built because I will know it is NOBODY but God who did this.  I couldn't have made it up even if I tried.

I also do not plan on traveling through the wilderness for 40 years so no murmuring, grumbling, and complaining.  Also when God says to GO AND TAKE YOUR TERRITORY!  I'm going.  No bad reports and fear mongering.

All things work together for good...even a field trip to the wilderness

In the natural world we are taught if you want this, then you do all of these right things and then you will have what you want.  Of course that doesn't work much of the time.

In God's economy things are even more interesting.  

• You pray for something
• He tells you to do something that doesn't appear to be related to what you prayed for
• You either accept it or figure it's too much of a hassle so you do it your own way
• If you accept it, God will begin to give you a revelation
• After the revelation, trouble comes and then things get even more messy or go silent altogether
• You just have to hold on and ask for more grace and wisdom
• If you don't accept what God says and do it your own way, things are a failure and you go running back to God.

Friends, I say this: Nice little narratives where things make perfect sense and everybody fits nicely into their boxes only exist in stories. 

Sometimes God will lead us right into the wilderness because he knows it's better that we get ourselves together there than go right into the promised land and turn back around.  If God led us into the wilderness, then he will surely lead us out and we know that it is for our good.  Like Bishop said, even Jesus went to the wilderness where Satan tempted before he launched his ministry.

Romans 8:28

²⁸ We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him.^[a] They are the people he called, because that was his plan.

To God be the Glory