Ponderings About Wanderings

I've never really been adept at finding my way around places. In fact, that's a very big understatement.

I have a habit of getting completely and utterly lost; you can ask some of my friends who have ever had to follow me or drive in the car with me...I'm working on it! When I was little it was even worse because I was also a wanderer. My mom would take me to the store with her and I would follow her around in my costumes and fancy dress up shoes (because yes...I was THAT kid) for the first few minutes, but then I would see other things that distracted me, and off I would go.

The problem was, whenever I would eventually realize I was lost I would just keep wandering. I didn't go back to where my mom was before or ask anyone for help. Just picture a little girl clomping around a grocery store in circles with no idea where she was headed. Eventually my mom would find me (sometimes with the help of the store's loudspeaker...because yep, again...I was THAT kid) and all would be well again. 

Until the next time we went to a store.

I find such a parallel between childhood me getting lost in the store to adult me wandering away from God and finding myself ridiculously lost. 

So many times I'm going through life and I'm following God, and His plan for my life but then I see something out of the corner of my eye that distracts me and pulls me in the other direction. Once that happens I start to get lost, and more distracted by other things and then before I know it I have no idea how to get back to where I was before. But because I think I can handle it on my own I keep wandering through life with no sense of direction.

I let my pride get in the way of admitting that I'm not the one in charge and that I desperately need God's help, and sometimes I even ignore what I know God wants me to do because I think I know best. (Spoiler alert: we never know best...ladies, God always has that on lockdown) 

Recently I found myself so completely lost it was as if I had been wandering around a store and then the power went out and I couldn't even see my feet in front of me. I was thrown a major curve ball because of how far I had let myself get lost. I had wandered off and was chasing after something that I wanted SO badly.

I ignored warning signs, I ignored God speaking to me and what I knew His standard for my life was and just kept going full steam ahead.

In the middle of me chasing after a relationship and desperately trying to hold onto it and what I had planned for myself, it fell apart. Because I had tied so much of myself and my heart to that instead of God and His plan, I felt some real heartbreak, and it felt kind of like the way I did when I was little and lost in a store. After some continued wandering (more than I would like to admit), I heard that voice over the figurative loudspeaker.

I heard God tell me to lean in to Him, to turn around and chase after Him again. I heard Him telling me to stop trying to write my own story, to trust in His plans and His timing instead of trying to make my way work. Ladies, one of the hardest things undoubtedly is to let go of control, but let me tell you something: Whether we accept it or not, God is holding the reigns. We can deny it to ourselves, we can try and fight with Him for control and groan about it or we can embrace it. Who better to be the one we follow than the Creator of the universe who loves us with an everlasting, unconditional love? 

There are constantly going to be things that distract us or try to pull us away from who we're following. Temptations, heartbreak, the list goes on and on. When we come up against those things,  we think we can handle them by ourselves but if we try and maneuver them alone we're going to end up lost every time.

God is made strong in our weaknesses and He alone can make ways for us to avoid temptation, He alone can heal our broken hearts, and He alone can guide our steps.

My prayer is that each of you, in all of the unique seasons of life that you're in, will stop wrestling with God for the reigns, stop trying to make your will work, and instead trust in Him to be in control. I pray that you will delight in Him and cast your cares on Him, and in doing that you'll find peace in knowing that God is working out every small detail of your life and what He has planned for you instead of wandering around lost. 

"The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him" Psalm 37:23

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" Proverbs 3:5-6

"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.
"Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" Numbers 23:19

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

"I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return]." Philippians 1:6