I’ve been known to go to God with something on my heart and impatiently wait for Him to answer. I remind Him that I’m not particularly gifted in receiving messages, listening, or understanding what it is that He wants me to do, and maybe – just this time – He could just text/email/sky write it for me?
The not knowing? It’s like traveling in thick fog, knowing the road is under you but not sure when it will end, what’s up ahead, or when the road might curve. I pray often for wisdom in those moments, never feeling sure of my own abilities to understand where and when and how and why – and I usually ask desperately, without pausing to wait for a response. I don’t like those parts of the journey. I don’t like the unknown, the unseen, and in those moments where I feel shrouded from the next step/plan/event that God has for me, my mind can start to imagine the worst – it’s where my over-active imagination meets the enemy’s plan to distract me from my purpose and I focus on feelings rather than Truth. In the fog I feel:
- Lonely
- Insignificant
- Lost
- Small
- Scared
My feet trust that there is a Light to my path, but my heart feels all the emotions that come with not knowing. And then I read about how God met with the Israelites in the Old Testament – a cloud that marked His presence with them as they traveled the wilderness, and I wonder. What if we looked at the moments where we feel like we’re traveling in fog, unable to see our way out, as God meeting us under the cloud? What if it’s in those moments where we can’t see the next step that He’s waiting to lead us? It’s there, in the cloudy moments that He prepares us to travel in faith because when that cloud lifts – God’s people are to be on the move.
I want to be ready. I want to slow down into those quiet, still moments and learn to listen to what God has to say over my life. I still wouldn’t mind a few answers sent in the mail or a timely word from a good friend to help me along the way. But until then, I’ll keep asking for direction and wisdom, and I’ll keep learning to listen, and I’ll trust that the unknown times are necessary to make me ready for the big reveal – in God’s perfect timing, when He knows I’ll be brave enough to take the next step.
Thank you for being so open and honest about what you feel during those times of not knowing, of being in that fog and not being able to see what is coming next. So many of those words completely describe how I feel during those times. “Lonely. Insignificant. Lost. Small. Scared.” I have felt them all, and how true that they seem so much more intense during times when our future doesn’t seem clearly laid out in front of us. But, hearing that someone else feels/has felt the same way I do has allowed me to be ok with those emotions and recognize that they are just that-emotions, transient feelings from my heart that will pass with time as I trust that God is preparing me for the path that he is laying out in front of me and will reveal to me as time goes on.
Oh how I can relate to this. I am also always reminding God that His answers need to be unmistakeable so that I can’t miss His guidance. That it needs to be crystal clear or I will find a way to mess it all up. Never thought about it like you mentioned above though, that it is in the clouds that He guides us.
This is such a wonderful reminder this morning! Even for those days when I feel under a cloud, may I remember our God is IN the cloud. I loved this post this morning!
I think you may have written this just for me. I have not done a particularly good job of waiting and I like you tend to be too impatient and wish that God would also sky-write his purpose for me. Despite my lack of waiting abilities the one thing that God has reminded me over and over again in this season is “You’re not waiting for me, you’re waiting with me. I’ve never left your side during this season.” There is such freedom in that – knowing that I’m not alone. Love you and your heart friend.
I go back to that story when I, too, feel lost, small, or insignificant. I love the image of God as a cloud or pillar of smoke and I’m reminded that He is covering me until my faith is increased.
Loved this post this morning.