Are you searching for your right job, right mission, right ministry? Do you ever feel helpless and hopeless, adrift in uncertainty? Do you ever have the feeling that you’re not doing all you should be doing, not being what you’re supposed to be? Do you ever question whether you really make a difference to anyone?
We’ve all been stuck in a life rut at one point or another. We spin our wheels and get nowhere. We sink deeper. And sometimes we seem to stay stuck a long time.
Most of us believe that ruts are temporary and God has the power to lift us out of them. We think it’s up to him to decide when and where. But in the meantime, we get impatient and try to wrench ourselves out before we’ve really relied on God. We try to prop ourselves up with material answers and dependencies, with human knowledge rather than divine wisdom. And when our human attempts don’t work (and they invariably don’t), we get frustrated. We give up and go back to wallowing. We figure that’s where God wants us. We think we’re submitting to his plan, when really, we’re submitting to human will.
I don’t believe God puts us anywhere but the palm of his hand. He doesn’t put us in the mud to wallow in order to for us to learn what we need to learn. Instead, he calls us out of the mud, and we rise until our last toe has been sucked from its mouth. Sometimes I forget this. But I know it’s true.
I don’t believe God knows anything about human suffering. I don’t believe God gives us pain. I don’t believe God is up there watching, waiting for us to turn away from him or turn back to him. I don’t believe God waits around to judge. I believe that God is incapable of anything but love.
So when we find ourselves in the mire of negative human thoughts, we must tap into God’s thoughts. And we must realize that man is always at the dawn of opportunity, a threshold opening to divine surprises, every one of which will fit us perfectly and comfortably.
*phrase taken from a 1938 lecture by Francis Lyster Jandron
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