I just couldn’t shake it- life was piling up, things I’d determined to do weren’t happening smoothly, & there were steps towards dreams I had hoped to take that weren’t happening. I was trying to plan for things, but I felt like there was a roadblock at every turn I tried to make. “Wait” seemed to be the overwhelming theme in everything I did. My frustration had been growing, & finally last Sunday it all came out. I spent the entire day in my pajamas, having a break down in my apartment. (Every woman knows a good break down is needed once in a while J) I just didn’t get it. Everything I was trying to work towards was good. The things my heart desired were desires that Father had birthed in me & I felt released to pursue.
Then it hit me…I was attempting to plan for all these good
things out of a desire in my flesh to feel security & I was acting like plans would provide that. I love
planning & making progress towards goals. Plans give me a sense of stability & comfort by seeing the
path that will get me to a goal. Plans
are good but not when they are rooted in fear, and that fear is precisely what the Lord wanted to get rid of in me. I
was subconsciously afraid that the desires of my heart wouldn’t come to pass,
so I was seeking security in planning for them. “If I plan, it will happen”. That’s why Father was blocking every move I was making. He was more concerned about my heart
than my progress towards a goal. He took me to the scripture in Hosea that says this:
“Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers (my plans) but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’…” –Hosea 2:6-7
What a wonderful Ouch.
The tears came falling when he took me through those
verses. Their sting brought me to
a beautiful place of seeing with His eyes that what I really needed was to let
my plans die & trust him with my desires. He loves me enough to kill in me the things aren’t in line
with his heart for me. He knew I
had a need to feel secure & had misidentified where that need could be
met. He wanted to kill my expectations
for what security looked like so that He could show me his plan for what
security is.
Now it made sense.
The entire last several weeks had been a dying process. That fleshly desire for false security
was being tested & proven lacking, so it needed to be done away with. Naturally, when the Lord is killing
something in you it hurts! I, being
the strong willed individual I am, had done a great job of resisting this &
forging on in my planning, completely unaware of what Father was trying to do.
Once I realized what He wanted, I had no choice but to submit to that
killing. You see, the precious
thing about Father is that when he puts his finger on an area of our flesh that
needs to die, as he kills IT he kisses US. He will kill you & kiss you over & over until the
job is done & when you come out of it, all of the pain of the killing was
nothing compared to the kisses he gave you & the person you are now. It is so worth it! I will trade his killing for kissing
any day (don’t hear me wrong, it still hurts!)
Maybe there is an area of your life where you’re feeling
blocked at every turn. I encourage you to press into it a
little more to see if Father has his hand in there somewhere. Is there an area where your heart’s
motives aren’t matching up with his? Welcome his killing of those places because the kisses He will give you in the process are
worth it. I’ll leave you with a song one of my friends sent to me at the perfect moment in all of this. It was one of Fathers kisses to me & if you’re in a “dying season” like I was, I hope it encourages you. Sing it out loud, declare it over yourself & feel his big wonderful kiss!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kM5HGSixKk - Though You Slay Me (Shane & Shane)