A question has been lingering in my mind the last week or so. I couldn’t be sure who authored it: God or my own desires. I just know my spirit leaped at the question and my doubt shut up. The question was: “If B____ is really what you want, are you willing to wait as long as it takes for God to do what he needs to do in him?” Before my analysis and my doubt of where it came from hit, my spirit shouted, “Yes!”
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But I didn’t know what to do with that question. That could have just been my own desires although people tend to forget that God is not just in the answers you don’t want to hear – sometimes he says yes. After all, he is “the God of ‘yes’ and ‘amen’.” But still I waited on him to confirm it. And I heard nothing. Except that question. And I can’t say it felt like a question outside of myself like the words were dropped into my mind. They rose up, unbidden, unrelated to anything, from within. And that could have been my own mind or the Spirit. And even though my spirit and God’s Spirit have steadily been brought into unity over the past difficult months, maybe this was just a little air pocket of my own mind in the steel that is being tempered. But whereas once those questions would have run me ragged, this time I simply lifted them up to God and asked for him to show the question for what it really was.
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Well, the week progressed and my exhaustion with my job increased. God had really shown his mercy and redemption when he transferred me at the eleventh hour to South Morrison just ten minutes farther north than Newsome Park, which has sunk even lower than last year, though it’s hard to believe. And God has blessed me every day. He has given me wisdom and shown me favor all year. But some things happened a couple of weeks ago – job contacts, networking blossoming where there was none, attacks at school of which I was innocent – that got me pretty well convinced that now is the time to pursue my dream job as a College Textbook Sales Representative. And we had a snow day last Wednesday which was a great opportunity to work on the job search, but not rest. By Wednesday night I was exhausted and acknowledging that for the last several days I had been questioning this great purpose I had put on like armor to intercede for the M____ clan and my beloved. I didn’t know if this doubt was because so much of my attention was diverted into the job search, because it really wasn’t from God, or simply because I was worn out. By Wednesday night, I was numb, snapping at the cat or raging at my slow computer, and generally stomping around my condo feeling the weight of who knows what on my shoulders. I got in the shower and thought about what I would say in my quiet time afterwards. As I was shaving my legs, the thought came to me, “Will God not move you away from this calling if it is not from him? Hasn’t he been worthy of that trust?” It stopped me in mid-shave and I answered, “Yes.” I still felt burdened but lighter.
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I got out of the shower and, in my bathrobe as I often do, knelt on the floor of my bathroom in the dark, and started where I could only start: with what I know. My chin trembling and my voice thick with tears, I said out loud what I knew – who God is, that he has been faithful from the beginning, that he is intensely involved and is working all things to my good. That he has given me wisdom every time I have asked and promised to teach me his way and direct me in the way I should go. That he would not waste me on a people who were never meant to be mine. That whatever came of this entire time, it would be for the absolute best, for what the eye had not seen, the ear had not heard, and the mind had not conceived. That I knew that I knew that I knew he had not left my side in this entire past ten months. I said with tears filling my eyes that I didn’t need to know what B____ was doing now or who he was with or if he ever thought of me – that it was enough to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God’s eye was ever on him, that God was all over this whole family.
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And I affirmed that if B____ really wasn’t meant for me, if there was no purpose here with him, that God would not let me languish; he would not waste me. He is not a God of stagnation; he is a God of new things. “See, I am doing a new thing; now it is springing up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Is. 43:18-19) This family is marked for freedom, and B____ is a part of that inheritance.
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As I stated what I knew, my feelings steadily came into alignment. And I felt rest. I felt lighter because the burden was gone. I actually looked forward to the next day and the one after that – that lovely feeling of happy, peaceful anticipation that has so often been missing from my life the past few years.
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And I stated to God, there in that small dark where he was, that I was stubborn, and I was going to hold stubbornly to the faith that if God didn’t ever intend for me to be with B____, to fight for him, then he would change me. I have not been rebellious, I have not drawn back. I have been obedient at every turn, submitting my heart to him so I truly want him more than anyone. I have done all I need to do to come fully under God’s protection and guidance. I told him then and there that I could not hold to B____ if my faith wasn’t as strong and tempered as it was, because ALL the signs point to my being a fool, every physical circumstance spells out NO in stone, but my faith says that God is strong enough and willing enough to direct me to where I should go, whether away from or towards B____. I declared that through utter and stubborn faith in who I know God to be, I was going to hold to B____ and to my name in his family. I am Nicole. I am my people’s victory.
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That night, in bed, I read more of Wild at Heart – I absolutely believe God meant for me to aimlessly wander to my bookshelf and take it out after years of collecting dust because it is B____’s struggle, his particular situation. And I saw how Eve was described.
Eve is given to Adam as his ezer kenegdo – or as many translations have it, his “helpmeet” or “helper.” Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But Robert Alter says this is “a notoriously difficult word to translate.” It means something far more powerful than just “helper”; it means “lifesaver.” The phrase is only used elsewhere of God, when you need him to come through for you desperately. “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you.” (Deut. 33:26) Eve is a life-giver; she is Adam’s ally. It is to both of them that the charter for adventure is given. It will take both of them to sustain life. And they will both need to fight together.”
Wow. If that ain’t a sign, my name isn’t Nicole. All right, I said in my spirit. I will be stubborn in this battle; I will continue to fight for my beloved’s freedom. Because I am a lifesaver. I am coming through for him in his desperate need. Never had I planned this when December hit in its full, awful, gale-force wrath. As John Eldredge says at the end of Wild at Heart, “In the past year or so I’ve made a number of decisions that make no sense unless there is a God and I am his friend.” Amen to that.
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I am in the fight for B____’s freedom and purpose, his identity in Christ and the healing of his deep, nominally acknowledged wound. This is indeed a battle of life and death – the life or death of his soul.
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I do believe that there might have been another man God could have led me to if I had been stubborn about shutting the door on B____. If the pain of his leaving had wormed its way into my heart and spirit and every time I thought about him, I shut it down.
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I believe this is the Secret in action – one of God’s laws working. I could have found someone else and loved him and created life with him. And it would have been good. God would have allowed nothing less than good for me.
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But I choose B____. I choose the wilderness, the hardest fight, the brightest faith, the greatest reward. My spirit is fierce; I have the heart of a warrior, and I need a fight like this to come into my name. How can my name, my victory, mean much if I stepped away from the battle and chose someone easier? That is not my design. I am Eve; I was created to be a lifesaver. How could Eve have ever realized her purpose if Adam had never been in desperate straits?
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This is one of the purposes open to me as they all radiate out from the crossroads I have been standing at. And having come into complete obedience to God, his law becomes for me not a mess of limitations and “shoulds” and “must nots” but freedom to stride into my purpose.
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