Blessings

image source: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/cpl/projects/graphcuttextures/

At the onset of this year, I asked God for a specific promise and then He gave me this:

“..I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)

I took it as God’s promise of blessing for me for the year 2011. There are only 30 days left before this year ends and so far, what I thought I had got were a failed expectation – when I did not graduate with honors last March and a love story with a sad and painful ending that contributed much to my making God into my own image and likeness. I started to feel like He delights in withholding things from me, that the thought of “doing so to make me become closer to Him” is not only clichéish but lame. I have noticed refusing to see the drama of life – concluding that perhaps, everything is simply pragmatic, and my former self who was hopeful and child-like had been immature after all. I noticed how I almost stopped believing in His romantic side – that His gaze is upon me and He is seeing me through. Like a child that never stops wailing thinking mom does not know what I need, I sometimes thought and acted as if He does not really know what I need or if He does, He does not really care. After all, He could be busy running this whole universe – for His glory and His alone.

“I’m at the wrong place at the wrong time,” is the thought I tend to believe in. Has God made a mistake in sending me here? Or I just didn’t hear His will clearly? Is this how he is blessing me?

These days, I have been thinking a lot about my future – how it would be nice to go abroad to reach out to those who don’t know Christ - perhaps, use my skills in doing so, how it would be great to do it with a man God has chosen for me. Oh, how my heart aches for this.

But God’s word today at church reminded me once again to be still.

Simply be still...

Nothing wrong with thinking about the future – in fact, to go and preach His word is His command – but to think too much of it at the expense of what God has in store for me today is a sin in itself – a way of saying I don’t trust Him enough and that I think this life He has given me now is inferior to what He has planned for the future.

Nothing wrong with desiring for marriage – it is God’s gift – but to not see other facets of life because of it is a sin in itself.

Just because I don’t have a huge ministry this year or a 5-digit salary per month or a romance that sends tingles down my spine doesn’t mean I am not blessed. I realized that the absence of such things in my life is the blessing in itself. Perhaps, God wants to build my character or He is testing my faith or He is simply making me rest or all of the above.

To simply wait and rest in Him is the best way I could serve Him at this point in my life.

My tears came rolling down my cheeks as I listened to the message and the song, “Blessing” by Laura Story.

It felt as if God was talking straight to my face. Of course, that couldn’t happen. I was just sure He was speaking straight to my heart.

His giving and withholding are both manifestations of His love. His blessings come in many forms and how stupid of me to have put Him in a box as to how mine would look like this year.

With all that I have and with all that I don’t, I give my praise to thee! Thank you for my 2011!