I Believe You Will

I really don’t know how to start this blog post guys.  I have sat here trying to come up with some cute analogy for the past 15 minutes or so.  And… nada.  So is it okay if I just lay it out for you?  As real and convicting as God laid it out for me?  Go with me on this.  Nothing fancy, just real truth.

So I’m driving along one day, and as always, my mind is going a million different directions.  Am I the only one who can start out thinking about what is for lunch and end up wondering how your great aunt living in Texas is doing?  (Okay, I don’t really have a great aunt in Texas, but you get the point)  So, I start thinking about all the things that have happened over the past few years, even in the past year alone.  So many things have changed. 

Anyone else ever just get fed up with change?  There are some people in this world who thrive on change, but I am not one of them.  Change messes with me.  It takes me so long to adjust it seems.  So much so, that I start to think I’ll never get over it.  I recently listened to a sermon entitled Move On.  The pastor used a great analogy (what do you know, I did get an analogy in here J)  He told a story about one of his many trips to the airport.  His flight had been delayed, and all of the passengers had been waiting for over 3 hours.  Just as he was about to run out of time to make it to his speaking engagement that night, he looked over and saw a plane at the very next gate, going to the exact place he needed to be.  He ran over and secured a seat.  The flight attendant told him that she had a few more seats, so he yells out to the passengers stuck at the other gate “There are open seats on this plane, going exactly where you want to go!”  And no one moved.  His point was not to stay stuck at gate E3 when the plane at E4 is going exactly where you need to be. 

The sermon intrigued me.  I had been through so much change and I have had such a hard time moving on.  Is it really that simple?  Choosing to get up and go to the next gate?  If it was that simple, why was I still struggling with it?  And the convicting words of the Lord gripped me, you really don’t believe that it’s possible.

And I didn’t.  I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to heal, possible for me to move on.  And I’m stuck at E3.  I get stuck, normally, in two different patterns of thinking.  One: My past mistakes.  I think “after all I have done, there is no way it can get any better, there is just no way.  I’m stuck being this way forever.”  Two: My past seasons.  God has called me out of a season that I loved, and I think “well, that’s it then, there’s no way it can be better than that.  I’m just stuck being miserable for the rest of my life, because it cannot be better than the way it was.”

And in the midst of my brokenness, I cry out to Jesus, “Heal my heart!”

… but I am still broken.

Why?  My already confused mind races.  I thought Jesus could heal me?  Why am I still broken?  To be honest with you guys, this is the time when my mask comes on.  What I feel does not match up with what I’m supposed to be like, so I hide it.  No one can see it, no one.  Nobody can know that I’m broken.  While the mask fools a broken world into thinking that I’m perfect, inside I’m screaming, just as broken as them. 

I shout to the heavens, “Jesus, why won’t You heal me?!?”  When all the while, I really don’t believe that He can.

Healing is always a process.  It’s slow and, sometimes, progress seems to come to a screeching halt.  But it begins with belief.  It begins with the cutting away of pretenses and pretending.  It begins when we stop spewing the words we know we are supposed to say, and start being real.  It begins with our honest cry to God, “Lord, I am hurting right now.  And even though I don’t really see how You can, I know You are my Healer.  So Father, come, heal me.  I believe You will.”

“’ [Jesus] have mercy on us and help us, if you can.’  ‘What do you mean, ‘if I can?’’ Jesus asked. ‘Anything is possible if a person believes.’  The father instantly cried out, ‘I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!’”  Mark 9:22b-24

Unknown

I graduate tomorrow...  I still don't think it has completely sunk in.  I've been in North Knox Schools for thirteen years.  It seems crazy for it all to be over.  I've been around the same people, the same places, the same communities for my entire life.  It's taking a while to hit me that this part of my life is ending.  I'm done with high school, and I'm going to college.

For so long, I was convinced I was going to go to VU and then transfer somewhere close to home.  I love my friends and family so much, there seemed to be no other option for me.  Until the beginning of this year.  A good family friend told me about this Christian college called Indiana Wesleyan University.  I had never heard of it before, but I decided to check it out.  I fell in love.  There was Scripture on very nearly every page of their website.  Anytime I received mail from them, it would say that they were praying for me and my decision.  When I visited campus, I loved the atmosphere, the look, the people, everything.  I loved the little prayer chapel in the middle of campus, the lunch food, and the fair trade coffee shop in the student center.  Although, I think the kicker was when I walked into their worship service and the band was singing "You Won't Relent" by Misty Edwards!  (I might have freaked, just a little)

I completely felt God's call to attend college there.  It was a perfect fit.  Except for one thing, it's four hours away from Knox County.  Not exactly what I had planned on.  But, I still feel God's call to attend there (my mom and dad felt the same) so, a month ago, I officially enrolled at Indiana Wesleyan University.  And I am really really excited!  But can I let you in on a little secret that not many know about...

I'm really scared too.

I don't do well with "unknown."  And pretty much everything about this college fits that category.  I do not know any students, teachers, seriously anyone there.  And that's scary for me.  I'm leaving everything I have ever known and going to a place that allows me to come home probably no more than once a month.  Move in day is three months from tomorrow, and let me tell you, it already feels like it's looming.  And you know, it seems that when I face an unknown, my response is normally pretty consistent.

When I'm facing down "unknown", I start to cling to what I know.  

When I don't know what's coming, what I've known for thirteen years starts to look pretty appealing.  I want certainty.  I want to know.  That is most likely why God always leads me places where certainty is far out of reach.

Because God works best and shines brightest when we don't know all the answers.  

"See I [God] am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Isaiah 43:19

Fear of "unknown" is not isolated to graduating seniors.  "Unknown" springs up everywhere in our lives.  I'm not sure what your "unknown" is, but I can pretty much guarantee that you have had one at one point or another.  When we're facing our own personal "unknown", what we had before looks a lot better than it did when we were living in it.

But, see, God is doing a new thing!  He is calling us out of what we know, out of comfort and certainty.  Do we not perceive it?  For this new thing has purpose!  God is going to use your "unknown."  For He is making a way in the wilderness.  Making a way where?  A way to The Way, Jesus.  He is making streams in the wasteland.  Streams of what?  Living water.  Streams where?  In the wilderness of this world.  God is using your "unknown" to further His kingdom.  He is going to take you, like He took Abram (aka Abraham): take you from your homeland and everything you know, take you somewhere you don't even know, take you where you don't understand, and you are following on a promise.  But that promise is enough.  Because God ALWAYS keeps His promises.  Always.

So may Abraham's example become our model.  For God called... and he went.  On simply a promise.  A promise that was kept: descendents as numerous as the stars.  He went, not because he knew where he was going, not because he had certainty, but because he "considered Him faithful who had made the promise" (Hebrews 11:11).

So it's not about knowing, about certainty.  It's not about the promise itself, it's all about the Promise Maker.  For when we know Him, we don't need to know anything else.