I know how to praise God in darkness. I know how to be in a fetal position crying out, saying I will choose Him again and again and again. The pain that arrested me in that place drove me to my knees and His Word. I could do nothing else! I had no other choice: If I wanted to live I had to choose Him. And choose Him I did…and slowly but surely, I crawled out of that dark place and into the light.
But once I was in the light, I started to realize, “I don’t know how to do the Christian walk up here.” I completely “got” how to choose God in the hard times, but when it came to the GOOD times, I was confused…my need wasn’t as prevelant. The light of day was distracting, with all its’ colors. My pain wasn’t there, glaring and poignant and screaming at me, driving me to my knees. I had to actually stop and access my heart….it wasn’t laying there in the open for me to just pass by and step in.
And once I got to the heart? I realized, I missed Him.
Fiercely.
Heart-rendingly.
In the “goodness” of life, I had just lost touch with Him, the GOOD of Life. Just coasting along in my happy bubble of a world…thinking I was doing good to others by loving them out of my excess.
And it became just as glaringly apparent that to chase God in the promised land required the same amount of energy (if not MORE!) as chasing Him in the desert. I have to reassess and press in, harder and harder. My soul doesn’t naturally do it FOR me now…I have to actually CHOOSE Him.
It’s odd, the way life swings us around in different seasons…and I’m grateful that we have a God who meets us in the middle of it all. In the plenty and in the lack, He is present, and He is GOD. I am reminded of some verses I quoted all the time in my “lack” days:
“”The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent.” – Lamentations 3:24-27
The LORD is my portion in good and bad. The LORD is my Protector in good and in bad. The LORD is The One Who Loves and Protects and Redeems me…not that man, not that job, not that bank account, not that family, not that friendship, not my image, not my platform…THE LORD ALONE!
All I need is the King of the Universe, The One Who placed those dreams in this heart, before He CREATED THE WORLD, THAT ONE to be a part of my daily, living, ordinary, breathing in-n-out days!
Here’s to HIM being our portion today.
Love you friends…
annetta
