Letting God be God

Ecclesiastes 11:5

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”

God sure does have a funny way of speaking to us the very words we need to hear.  A year ago, I was given the opportunity to speak at my High School graduation. I only had a few weeks to prepare, and I had no idea what to talk about. I knew that my purpose was not to go onstage and make a fool of myself. I didn’t want to go up and brag about my ‘accomplishments,’ my class, my teachers, or even thank my family and friends. It was all too overdone, too cliche. All I did know was that God had given me one last opportunity to speak, not only to my classmates, but to their families and friends sitting in the crowd. It was a moment that I did not take for granted, and an opportunity that I was not going to waste, or abuse. One day, the words began pouring out of me, and I grabbed my notebook and pen, scribbling down everything that was popping into my mind. It seemed like the speech came out of nowhere, but truly, it came straight out of the heart of God. Certainly they were not my words, or thoughts, but His. 

The message He gave me was based around a song entitled, ‘Emphasis.’ The chorus cuts right to my heart every time I hear it. It says: “Was it all just a grain of sand in an hourglass? The smartest thing I’ve ever learned is that I don’t have all the answers, just a little light to call my own. Though it pales in comparison to the overarching shadows, a speck of light can reignite the sun, and swallow darkness whole.” Light. Light illuminates, radiates, reflects, casts shadow, awakens, and eradicates darkness. To us, it is nothing more than a flip of a switch, just another thing in our control. We choose to sit in darkness, or stand in light. We choose to flip the switch on, or off, and we don’t think twice about our decision. But how often, oh how often, we do this to the Lord. His light never ceases to shine, and with His spirit living inside of us, we have access to that everlasting, ever radiant, ever bright light. So why do I place a shade over it constantly? Why do I turn off the switch and not think twice about it? Solomon knows the answer. It is not unintentional or accidental, it is purposeful, though I believe many Christians have grown oblivious to it. We cover up the light within us, because we don’t understand what God is doing. “…you do not know the work of God who made everything.” We don’t know what God is going to do with the light inside of us, and it scares us half to death. We ask God to take us deeper and lower, and to make us bold and bright, but we doubt that He even knows how to take us there, and that He will give us everything we need to accomplish His will. Yes, we finite human beings doubt the infinite, Creator God. We fear and hide. Remember Jonah? Jonah was so afraid of the calling God had placed on His life, that he tried to run away from God. He did everything he possibly could to escape God’s plans, all because He didn’t understand. We poke fun at Jonah all of the time, failing to realize that we are Jonah, every second of the day. We are always running away from the call, not towards it. I tried to run too, but God gave me a word a few months earlier, that kept me walking in his steps. God told me to be okay with not knowing, to live passionately, and love persistently. I had no idea that this speech I was giving was really just for me. In a few short months, God would take all of my plans and slide them off the table. He brought me to Guatemala, and now Kenya, and for what? Honestly, I don’t have an answer to that question. I don’t know the why yet. I don’t know why God’s plans were different than mine. I don’t know what He is doing in my life. Truly, there is not one aspect that my mind has begun to conceive, but I can’t forget how faithful, how steadfastly constant, my God is; I want to be that kind of a daughter to Him, and no matter how much I don’t understand, I will always know who God is, and that has to be enough. I have to let God be God. I need to let Him be everything, and me, nothing. I was reminded often in training that I must keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing is not the why, it is not me and what I can do, in fact, it has nothing to do with me. The main thing is Jesus. That’s it. It’s Him, always. It is His light in my being, His fire in my bones, His breath in my lungs, and if I give in to Him and let Him completely take over, there’s no telling what He will do in and through me. So I must learn to get over myself, get over fear, stop brooding over the ‘impossibilities’ and uncertainties, and let God work in ways that I can’t understand. Those are the ways that take people’s breath away. Those are the ways that bring people to their knees. Because no matter how uncertain our lives may seem, when they are resting in the palms of our Maker, nothing is uncertain, all is steadfast. 

Application: I desperately need this as a daily reminder, therefore I will write out this verse, as well as this saying: “be okay with not knowing, live passionately, and love persistently.” I will hang it up in my closet so that I see it everyday, and an reminded to let go, and let God be God.