Thursday, August 3, 2017

When God Points...

I was in the car alone with my husband. We had just dropped our kids off with my parents and were driving back the hour and a half home as the sun went down. I had already determined earlier today that I would use this alone time, free of kids and distractions, to share a dream of mine with him that had been brewing in my soul. I was nervous about starting the conversation. It is hard to share a seemingly impossible dream...even with someone you know loves you. I hesitated. I thought about waiting till later. But then God (isn't that how the best things begin?) bolstered my courage by painting a breathtaking sight in the sky. Peter knows I love the sunset and suddenly, while I sat silently gathering my courage, he veered off the main road, and down a side street. I asked him where he was going just as he crested a hill and turned into a parking lot and stopped. Before me was the most breathtaking view, free of power lines and street signs and tail-lights. Free of distractions.
The most beautiful sunset.
There was a very distinctive bright ray pointing straight up surrounded by a splash of color at the bottom. I thought, I want to be like that...I want to reach up for God so hard that His light falls down and bursts out all around me. For about the millionth time in my life, a sunset brought tears to my eyes. A gift from God, pointing me and encouraging me and making me feel safe with the one he had given me to.
We pulled back onto the road...and my husband asked a simple innocent question that was the perfect lead in to what I wanted to share. And the words burst out of me! We talked the rest of the hour home. And all the way the sun rays chasing along the edge of the sky changed and the colors changed. We would turn a corner and I would catch my breath and stop mid-sentence and say "Oh, it's just so beautiful!" I thought how scared I often am of change, but how, often, change just makes us better. Peter would smile and squeeze my hand and keep driving. Keep going. He often keeps me going! One of Peter's comments led me to look something up online and I stumbled upon this perfect phrase for this perfect moment:
"The finger of God never points to a place where His hand has not already made a way." (A quote from Mandisa!)

Where is God pointing in your life? Where, to what, or whom, is he compelling you, and drawing you? He is patient and loving. And he has already made a way.
The thing is, we have to be willing to change and to go chase the rays. We have to be willing to veer off the safe main road to see the way better. We have to trust the ones he has put in our lives to walk the path us. We just have to follow the light where it points and obediently step in his direction.

A Limitless View of God

 I’ve been thinking a lot the last few months about my tendency to limit God by the limits that I, myself, am most comfortable working in.  ...