"We've got stuff to do!"

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Isaiah 53:6 NIV.

God recently said no to something that I wanted, and boy did I throw my toys out the pram! It's a little embarrassing if I'm honest, but I'm sure we've all been there.

You pray for something, you feel 100% sure that it's going to happen...and then He says "no". 

Even though we KNOW that God knows what is best for us, we KNOW that He has plans to prosper and not to harm us...we still sometimes think that WE know best, don't we? 

When a door is closed in our face, it's easy to blame the person who closed that door. We get hurt, we get defensive and we can find it reeeeally hard to trust that it's part of His plan when it clashes with our own.
The enemy is quick to jump into those moments with little whisperings of "you're not good enough!".

I'm totally preaching to myself in this post...it took me a while to remember that nobody would be able to close a door that He had opened.

I had a dream a long time ago of walking down a long straight road, and right in the distance at the top of the road I could just about make out a figure standing and waiting. The figure was Jesus. As I was walking down the road I could see lots of different things happening off the side of the road...a bonfire with people huddled around, a group of people playing sports, people having a picnic, people having a fight...and it's just like me to get distracted by shiney things along the way. Instead of keeping my focus on heading towards Jesus along the straight road, I'm wondering "ooh what's that over there?". 

Being a Christian is so, so simple...in theory. God has carved out a straight and narrow road, and we know where we are headed. We know how to get there and what waits for us when we arrive at the top of that road...but we get distracted along the way. 

We can wander off of the path, but no matter how far off we stray, the path is always there to jump back on and continue on our way. 

During my....let's call it "wobble"...I was mad. It was a time where alot was going wrong, I felt like what I was asking for wasn't something I wanted, but something that I really needed. I lost my fire for God, though I didn't lose my Faith in Him. But I did lose my motivation for a while. At one point I asked "Where have you gone? You were so present in my life! You were right THERE. Where did you go?" I felt Him say "I haven't gone anywhere. YOU have." 

I had been distracted by a shiney thing!

I had this image of Jesus standing next to me tapping His foot and looking at His watch, saying "C'mon! Are you done tantrumming yet? We've got stuff to do!". 

"But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away." Jeremiah 5:23. 

When I finally got back on the path I noticed that God had been busy. The road had been re-tarmaced... so to speak. While I was busy focussing on being mad, He had been putting my life in order for me and was quick to show me that His plans were definitely better than my own. 

God is Faithful like that, isn't He? He never leaves us, He doesn't hold our tantrums against us and He is always quick to welcome us back when we are ready.

We can make our own plans in life, but God has much bigger and better plans for us. He let's us make our mistakes, and we learn to trust Him when things go wrong. We learn to remember that He knows what He's doing. 

Not that it's easy...I already know that I will have plenty more "wobbles", and so will you...but thankfully He is patient and loves us regardless of our tantrums.