Reflections

I asked God this morning what He wanted me to know today. His answer came quickly – without hesitation or delay.

“I am in control.”

Not me.
Not my boss.
Not the President of the United States.

God is in control.

Maybe, like me, you need to be reminded of this truth.

The burden – whatever it is – is not your’s to bear. It is God’s and God’s alone.

It is not your responsibility to accomplish – it is His.

Your responsibility is to know Him for to know Him is to trust Him. His intentions are good and noble and trustworthy towards us. Ask Him to show you and He will. And in the meantime…may you REST in knowing that He is in control. Always and forever. Amen.

A while back, God started to reveal to me a plan he had for my life. So, I’ve been waiting…and waiting…and waiting some more…for Him to set things in motion for that new season to begin. It’s difficult. It stretches my faith. But yet it is so much fun to see Him work.

I realized yesterday that I do not have a Plan B should things not happen as God has promised. My mind started to get away from me, and to be honest, a little panic started to set it. What am I going to do if XYZ doesn’t happen? I don’t have a plan B.

Now for some not prone to plan, this might not phase you, but for a project manager who is constantly asking the question, “What is our contingency plan? What if this doesn’t work?” it is difficult.

So, like any good project manager, I immediately started to come up with a Plan B. “What are my options?” I asked myself. Never, not once, did I take this question to God.

This morning, I overslept. Since my coffee time with Christ was limited, I started reading some random devotions that I keep on my phone for emergency purposes. To be honest, I cannot remember the last time I opened one. Here is what I discovered:

“I kept hearing in my spirit, “Steady as she goes.” It is a navigational phrase that means the same thing as “stay the course”. Don’t change anything; keep doing what you’ve been doing. And, I heard the Lord say: In your recent course corrections refuse to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate advantage. You are on the right track. Just keep moving and obeying My voice and My leading. You will see that divine purpose is being accomplished.

While I found this interesting, I didn’t know exactly what God wanted me to do with it. Until I read another devotion. This one written by Beth Moore (which I haven’t picked that up in months and months, mind you). This is what Mrs. Beth had to share:

“…The Greek term for “keep watch” is prosecho. “As a nautical term it means to hold a ship in a direction, to sail towards…to hold on ones course toward a place.”

Immediately, my response to God was, “What is up with the nautical terms this morning?” And then it occurred to me.

Despite the fact that I never took my Plan B question to God, He answered it.

I am on the right track.
I need to stay the course.
There isn’t a Plan B.

You see, when we have a plan B, we are doubting God’s ability to accomplish His plan for our lives, and that denotes doubt. Doubt, as we have learned in the past, is the antonym of belief. The nemesis of faith. Scripture tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God”
(Hebrews 11:6).

So, despite the discomfort and the waiting, I will choose to stay the course. I will not have a Plan B “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ”
(Philippians 1:6).

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful”
(Hebrews 10:23).

I picked up the phone and dialed the number by memory. It had been a while since I dialed any number by memory, let alone this one, but as I stared at the keypad, my fingers dialed it effortlessly.

I cannot tell you how many times I have typed those seven digits over the course of almost thirty years.

Hundreds?
Thousands?

But today, as they have for so many years, those digits unlocked a treasure: the sound of my friend’s voice.

When we first met in 5th grade, Connie and I weren’t big fans of each other. In fact, I am likely the reason that she never got to go outside during recess for an entire year. But over the course of a school year, we became friends to the point that we really just had one name: Connieandnikol.

Our friendship carried on, miraculously, through middle school and high school, and we were roommates in college for all five-ish years.

As path’s often do, our’s split when we left college, but the thread of Connie’s friendship is woven deeply into the fabric of my heart.

We talk sporadically these days, but when we do talk there is…

no pretense;
no facade;
no mask.

Just love and acceptance that seem to grow with each passing year.

I’ve often thought about the extraordinary gift of her friendship and wondered how it has weathered the years, and there is one word that resounds with me: grace.

You see, Connie and I are very different, and have been our entire lives. Yet, even though we don’t always agree or have the same things in common, we have consistently extended grace to each other.

Grace to grow without obligation;
grace to be without expectation;
and grace to fall without condemnation.

Grace is an extension of love that we have for others; and the grace we extend is dim in comparison to the grace that God extends to us. His grace is magnificent and mind-boggling and truly amazing.

Is there someone in your life that needs grace?

Perhaps you think they are unlovely;
or you have deemed them unworthy;
or maybe their offense unforgivable.

But if He – the One who is perfect, the One who is righteous, and the only One who is just in His judgments chose to give us grace, who are we to deny it to another?

“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” – Colossians 3:13