Our Goose was (Almost) Cooked

I love how God uses the most ordinary things to illustrate His truths to me in very profound ways.  He is an extreme multi-tasker, and very good at it, but most of His ways are too big to wrap my head around, so I just fall over in amazement attempting to stutter some words of gratitude. 

My current illustration begins with a stove.  A couple that knew my husband decided to renovate their kitchen, replacing all their appliances.  We were blessed with a gently used stove that resembled ours but had a ceramic top that I've been wanting (and waiting for) for years.  What a nice gift, we thought, that God gave us.  It stood in our garage for several days before we had the time to replace the old one.

As my husband began to pull the old stove from the wall, he was greatly disturbed by what he found.  The wire to the stove was fried!  We were amazed that it had not caught fire to our house, even more so that it was still working. I had even cooked dinner that night!  You could say we were a bit thankful for all those bedtime prayers of protection our 7yr old faithfully prayed every night.  We were as equally thankful for the new stove coming when it did.  What timing!  How could that be?  My mind went into a spin thinking about God knowing our needs and providing for them even before we know we have a need.

But the good stuff doesn't end there.  I've been reading through Romans 5 & 6 where we are given the bad news that "through one man's offense judgement came to all men, resulting in condemnation".  Because of Adam we are destined to a life of sin/death.  But in the same sentence we are given hope, "even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life" (5:18)  So God, before we were ever aware of our need for salvation, provided it through His Son and we had nothing to do with it;  like our stove, God saw the wires before we ever knew and provided an answer for it.

Concerning our stove, it was a fact that there was a deadly situation going on where we could not see, where our understanding was limited.  Not seeing or understanding it didn't make it any less true, and regardless of our lack therein God provided out of His love for us.  The answer to our problem was waiting for us.  All we needed to do was remove the "old" and let the "new" begin doing what it was made to do in the first place.  Likewise, our deadly condition is a fact and salvation waits for us to take hold of it. We are told "our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin" (6:6), meaning IT IS FINISHED. 

We have total access to new life, new beginning.....a new nature.  We were created with a purpose, and when we recognize the danger that the "old creation" is in , we can reach out for that which was provided for us, and live as we were intended to live in the beginning.

I've Always Wanted Night Vision

There was a time God was asking me to walk in complete darkness.  I'm not talking about the kind of darkness that we associate to evil, but darkness that removes all ability to see with the eye, and requires us to become aware of things other than what we can (or can't) visually understand. That's where faith comes alive!

After homeschooling my children for 15 years, it was time to make a change, one that I wasn't that willing to make.  I had already fought it for 2 years. but because we were becoming more and more financially "in the hole", serious changes needed to take place.  I had to get a job.  And because I knew myself, I knew I wasn't able to work and homeschool successfully.  Another reason I fought it so long was that I found my identity in being a "homeschool mom"; that's WHO I was.  How could I give up?  That meant failure in my eyes and giving up my "swim against the stream" temperment.  I finally relented, and that's when I began my journey through total darkness.

Imagine, in your experience. when faced with a sudden blackout, what do you do?  Panic?  Reach for the nearest thing to get your bearings so you can understand where you are?  Perhaps you don't know where you are, you're standing in an unfamiliar room and you could endanger yourself by even walking forward.  That's how I felt.  All my senses went into panic mode as I realized I was in a new and scary place.  I had to get all my years of paperwork in order --and I'm terrible with paperwork, call the school, trust strangers to care about my kids' education --and worry that I did an acceptable job in their eyes, and then find a job --and we know how stressful that can be on its own.  All of this, and more, was overwhelming me to the point where I wanted to shut down and give up.  But I knew if I gave up today, tomorrow we could lose everything; and so my middle name "procrastination" had to be changed.

God gave me a vision of myself in panic mode, reaching out in the darkness, my hands flailing about for something to grasp, my eyes wide open straining for something to see.  Then I sensed His voice, "Be still", and I strangely felt comforted.  As I stood in peace, I knew the Lord was intending to get me through that dark room, but I had listen.  As He directed me step by step, revealing only one movement at a time, I was able to get beyond the obstacles that trapped me from moving forward.  In reality, each day came with a different focus; I would inquire of the Lord and He would direct my step.  One day was finishing the grades and recording them, another was making phone calls, one day I simply just focused on laundry, and then a whole day was devoted to job searching.  Where I failed to see that I didn't have to do everything in one day, God broke it down for me day by day, step by step, so I could get through my "darkness".

Sometimes God must get us into a place where we cannot see, so we will listen with more intention. Its our human nature when we see obstacles in front of us to move in our own understanding or get so overwhelmed that we give up.  He is good to us to only reveal portions of life at a time; we couldn't manage it all at once, we may even deny ourselves the opportunity for great fullfillment because our limited vision has decided something is too impossible.  I encourage you to let God lead you into total darkness, because He will light your path to see things you could never see with your eyes wide open.