wilderness skills part 3

i knew from others comments on these chapters that there would be some serious heart check moments for me. so i walked into it knowing that and still felt like i got slapped upside the head, like, duh...why is this so hard for you to get? i needed that. chapter 5- the wilderness of despair "Despair," defined simply, is the state of being without hope. And without hope...a woman is then without joy. i like her definitions. she keeps them short & simple & totally understandable. it really helps me focus in on what exactly we are talking about and heading towards. as she shared the story of her friend telling of her miscarriage, this stuck out to me: "The Lord is good and his love endures forever" [Psalm 100:5 NIV]. So that is what I said to myself over and over, probably at least a hundred times before the doctor came. Honestly, at first I didn't feel it. God didn't feel good, and I didn't feel loved. But after clinging to the verse for a while, it began to feel like the only truth--the only thing I could hold onto. the number of times she said the word "feel" in that passage jumped out at me. so often lately i think i've been going off of what i "feel" instead of what i know to be true. so often when i'm doing follow-up with a new believer, i remind them and go over a description of how our relationship with the Lord needs to be based on fact not feeling. literally in the back of the knowing God personally booklet we use to help share the gospel, there is a section entitled "Do Not Depend on Feelings." it says: The promise of God's Word, the Bible--not our feelings--is our authority. The Christian lives by faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God Himself and His word. Flying in a jet can illustrate the relationship among fact (God and His Word), faith (our trust in God and His Word), and feeling (the result of our faith and obedience) (John 14:21). To be transported by a jet, we must place our faith in the trustworthiness of the aircraft and the pilot who flies it. Our feelings of confidence or fear do not affect the ability of the jet to transport us, though they do affect how much we enjoy the trip. In the same way, we as Christians do not depend on feelings or emotions, but we place our faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God and the promises of His Word. i still believe that God is who he says he is, but i've been doubting his word & promises for me. the verses i've been studying on waiting repeatedly remind me that God is faithful, he has good things for me, he is near to me, he is my salvation, he wants to give me the desires of my heart, and on and on and on. they have been good reminders for me in this waiting period. they have kept my heart from despair. i have desperately needed to cling to them. often, i haven't believed them for myself. but i have to choose to listen to truth and not just feeling. her statement of God's delays are not God's denials was good for me to hear too. i don't know his whole plan for me. sometimes the answer will be no. sometimes it will be yes. and sometimes it will be wait and find out. and i have to be okay with that. as she described and reminded us that our God is a relational God who wants to hear from us, she quoted Psalm 73:28, "The nearness of God is my good." that is a good verse for me. i often feel alone in this as i look around and see so many couples and attend wedding after wedding and see friends working on campus and other friends who are buying houses and having kids and finding job & financial success. but sharing this with amy and holly and jennifer and stephanie and others, i am reminded that i am not the only one here. i am not alone. and even when they aren't near, God is. and that is my good. that is what i need. what i can cling to. and it is my ultimate good. nothing else really matters as long as i have Him. as she began to discuss hope and faith, i underlined a lot. a LOT. there is a lot of blue on these pages. probably because i need to remind myself what a life of faith looks like. marian says: Faith, confident assurance, pleases God. It says to Him, "I believe You are who You say You are, and I believe You can do what You say You can do." Ultimately, faith is rooted in God. So, last question: how is it, then, that faith produces hope? Faith results in hope when a woman walks in confident assurance, her eyes are set and focused upon the unchanging and unwavering Person of God, and she believes that the outcome will ultimately be for her good. ouch. i don't think my faith has looked like that lately. i need to continue to set and focus my eyes on God (love the reminder of his unchanging and unwavering attributes, makes me feel safe and secure). and something i haven't been doing, i have to BELIEVE that the outcome will be for my good. its easy for me to doubt at times that it won't be, that i should take control and try to make things happen the way i think they should. but i need to keep reminding myself that it would not lead to my ULTIMATE good. maybe what i feel like my immediate good is would be accomplished, but not my ULTIMATE good. chapter 7-the wilderness of unmet desire yikes. this is going to be a rough one i think. To desire is to long for something. To hope, dream, or yearn. A wilderness of unmet desire is waiting for that hope to become a reality. It is the postponement of a longing of your soul. The feeling that your life is standing still while others appear to be moving in high speed. A woman in this wilderness may ask herself, "Did God push 'pause' on my life and forget to inform me?" has she seen the inside of my heart and i just don't remember meeting her? seriously, i feel like she is expressing the exact sentiments of my heart. that is how i feel. pretty much all the time. i'm glad she addresses a few of the dangers in this wilderness. envy, manipulation, and worry. i've totally been experiencing that. i have a love/hate relationship with weddings. and mostly it is because of envy. with a wedding tomorrow and another one next weekend i need to remember her advice: Ask Him to protect you from the taunts of the Enemy and to guard your mind from comparing and coveting. even this i need to take to Him. He alone can help me enjoy celebrating my family & friend's joy and protect my heart from believing the lies that always pop in...that it will never happen for me...that something must be wrong with me since i'm the only single one here...that God is holding back on me for some reason. obviously its easy for those to come to mind. i'm going to need some prayer. i definitely need to guard my heart when heading to weddings. i do love seeing my friends & family happy & joyful. i need to focus on that and what the Lord is doing in my life. then she slams it home as she discusses david's waiting period. Somewhere in the wilderness of unmet desire, as I continue to wait for God to provide marriage, I think I had allowed marriage to become this sort of Holy Grail that I needed to attain in order to be happy. Or worse, I was allowing the institution itself to be the measure of my worth. If I'm not married, does that mean I'm not as good as the other girls who are? Does my singleness reflect a lack in my relationship with God? NO. IT DOES NOT. but that is so often how i'm made to feel. well meaning friends often share how much they want me to find someone. and while i know they mean well and as much as it is a desire of my own too, it still makes me feel that there isn't something good enough about me right now. that to be right or good in their eyes i need to have someone. i'm not enough. but that is not how God sees me. and that is what i'm being reminded of. i'm going to have to read this book over and over again i think. she continues: God is good, and He can and will meet the desires of my heart in His timing...not mine. My only responsibility is to let God be God. wow. my heart hurts as i read that again. my thoughts have been so consumed with self lately. i've not done a good job of letting God be God. and that sucks. and that needs to change. one of my life verses is quoted in this chapter. it has been one of my favorite verses since freshman year of college. every time i think i've got it, i realize i'm not even close. its a long process. but a good one. Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Psalm 37:4-7 Somewhere deep within I believed the lie that God didn't really care about my desires. I knew He wanted good for other people, but I didn't quite believe it for myself...The Lord asked me what I desired because for years I'd coped with my unmet desires by simply pretending they didn't exist....The word commit means to hand something over. So instead of hiding my heart's desires away and pretending they didn't exist, God was calling me to bring them out into the open of our relationship and entrust them to Him. she is cracking open my heart and spilling it out on to the pages of her book again. its hard to read about yourself and realize you have been an idiot. ugh. gotta love it though. i feel a little worn and beaten up after those chapters. but in a good way. i need to hear it. i needed to see it about myself. i need to believe in what God has promised and i need to choose to live that out. remind me of that.