Chasing after safe

I was chasing healing when I'd been made well
I was fighting battles when You conquered hell
Living free but from a prison cell
Lord, I lay it down today

So I'll stop living off of how I feel
And start standing on Your truth revealed
Jesus is my strength, my shield
And He will never fail me

~Casting Crowns~ All you ever wanted 

Driving home this evening I was having a conversation with myself about how God is revealing Himself to me.  Hmm maybe I will sound a lot more spiritual if I say I was having a conversation with God…. that sounds better.

It went something like this, “Maybe I  continually come to this point because God is showing me the areas that I struggle to completely surrender to Him?”

I just want to be “fixed”.  I want God to see that I have finally reached that place in my head where I no longer struggle with all that muck that has plagued me for some time now.

Fixed in my mind has this warped image of some awful form of perfection.  Ah the evil word perfection. 

I long to be what I feel everyone else is.  Baggage free, pure hearts, perfect moms, humbled wives, no fears, surrendered hearts, ah my list could go on and on.

  When my mind is in a healthy place I laugh at myself because I know how unrealistic my thought process is but when I am triggered and my mind begins to wander down this path of self-destruction I begin to feel paralyzed with these awful fears and tendencies to want to control aspects beyond my control.

God reveals to me that I am still desperately trying to hold tight and He continually reveals Himself in this struggle.

But I just want to be fixed.  Why is there this relentless struggle in my heart and mind?  If I am doing it right this shouldn’t happen because I should be fixed.  And if I am fixed He will love me more and I will have a special place in His heart.

Doesn’t the word safe just make you feel good?

 Somewhere inside I just want this reassurance that everything will be ok. 

These horrible thoughts won’t overtake me and make me crazy.  My girls will never experience the pain I did.  I won’t die young.

 I want this guarantee of safety that I will not find on this side of heaven. 

God is in constant pursue of every area of our hearts.  He wants nothing more than for us to be growing and pressing forward.  I find myself running back to this scripture to remind myself to never become to comfortable and numb for growth.

Romans 12:1-2

~the message~

 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I laugh at myself sometimes when I think about how I pray to be stripped of my bondage and for God to reveal Himself and help me to move forward.  But yet when He does I want to retreat back to where I feel safe!

My husband and I were talking while we were traveling home this past weekend.  My heart was troubled and I was searching for a safe place to land.  He said something that spoke into my anxious heart.  I was sharing with him my need to want to control and how my feelings were making me feel unsafe.   I know where this struggle stems from but I just wish it would go away and I didn’t have to struggle with it anymore.  I just want these fears to go away.  After sharing some more he said this to me, “Nicole you are just a fragment of Gods story and He is going to use it to better His kingdom no matter what.  Even if something really horrible happens He knows and He loves you.  But you have to trust Him and know that He is in control.   He knows why you went through what you have gone through and why you struggle with this.  He knows that you are going to use it to better His kingdom.”  That man of mine has special ways to calm my anxious heart.

Isn’t that the truth though?  He knows even before we walk through it.  He hears our prayers for healing and restoration,  for safety over our lives and our children’s lives.   

But friends, there is pain on this side of heaven.  

 There is no perfect, no way we can control the outcome every time.  We are not guaranteed a pain free life.  But we have a loving Father who walks with us EVERY step of the way encouraging us to hand over pieces of our hearts to him that have been wounded, stripped of all hope, lost along the way, beaten and bruised, used and abused, and left searching for something unattainable here on earth.

But we can attain an honest and real relationship with Him.

He has only ever wanted my heart.  Not the fixed version I am constantly trying to offer Him.  But He wants the anxious, fearful, control freak I really am.  It is then He can begin to heal and help me die to my old self and be made new!

 He isn’t looking to fix you He is looking to help heal you.  And if you are human like me{I am assuming you are} we won’t be completely healed until we meet Him.  But we make progress on this side of heaven.

I’m learning that I am a constant work in progress.  I never want to become so numb to my pain that I am afraid to change and move closer to God.  I am so thankful to serve a God that loves me through my worst fears and seeks me out in the midst of my trials.

The reason we experience little transformation is because we have equated numbness with contentment.  But living a numb life only prevents us from becoming the people God longs us to be.

~Beyond Ordinary : when a good marriage just isn't good enough~ Justin and Trisha Davis