My mom texted me early this morning - that train broke down en route. 6 hours. Standstill. No bathrooms (an Armstrong-side nightmare that affects us all). They were finally bussed into Ottawa. I would have gotten in relatively close to midnight. This morning the trains got combined (that almost always happens) and I got onto like the nicest train ever. I was so excited. Like a kid - that kind of excited. Just about God's favour.
Then I had a moment of pure terror. Of 'what bad thing is going to happen to make up for this' and 'what is He preparing me for'. Isn't that stupid? It's how I've always thought, or rather, how I've always lived. Always on the lookout for that cliff. Always protecting myself from so much that I've let myself box out even the good. Always closed. That's how I had to live without Him. It's how I survived through the trappings of my own mind.
It's how I lived without Him... before.
Before Him. He's calling me out of that. I still protect myself in so many ways. I don't acknowledge that He protects me, or at least I didn't. I will now. I'm currently praying against my mindsets. Logically I'm thinking that since it took me 24 years to get this boxed in, it will take the same amount of time for me to get out of it. That's my plan not His. Who am I to determine His timing? Especially because His timing is so evident in my story, in all of our stories. Intricately weaved together with those around us. Fractally purposed.
If this year is about walking in Kingdom Authority then shouldn't I step closer to that? Shouldn't I trust Him and trust in the works He is trying to do in me? Shouldn't I protect those more than I should myself? I want to be more like that. I want a faith that is not afraid of change. I want one that is forever growing. Like when I wrote about evergrowth... I love that the things He gives me make sense altogether, but only when He reminds or reveals them to me.
Maybe accepting small things is easy for you. Maybe accepting the good things is like breathing for you, just there for the action... but maybe you're like me instead. Maybe you can't see a gift as something simple. Maybe you can't accept anything. It is a struggle to be there, but I'm glad I'm coming through it - that I'll know what it means to accept. That I'll be thankful, that I'll be changed, because I want to be far from where I was when I couldn't even accept God. I couldn't accept Him simply because He was willing to accept me. Maybe you've been there or are there now. That was my struggle in salvation. I wasn't worth it. I grasped it feeling that way, but I took it. That grab, that lifeline, changed everything. All at once, but I didn't know that it was all at once. That's stubbornness. I thought salvation took time. That I could earn it. The things that changed are still being revealed to me on a daily basis. And He's adding to them. You know why it took so long? The scope of all He did is unfathomable. He did so much in me that one moment that I am only now realizing. That I am only now accepting.
That's true of what He is doing in me today too. I may not know how important today is until tomorrow. Or even until many tomorrows have come and gone. But it'll come. We are programmed to learn. We can try to refuse it, but there's no lasting way to stop the truth. We all know God is real. We do. Every person knows that, whether they'll admit it or not. Why else would living 'my way' terrify us. Why else would people deaden themselves through drugs and addictions or even simply distract themselves? It's to distract themselves from pain with pain. Its the pain of separation we feel from being far from God. That's why Christians can feel that pain too - because one step away from God hurts us more than anything. We know Him, know His Son, and know the Holy Spirit through our daily relationship, through our faith. We know. The key is letting that knowing affect our steps. With that Kingdom Authority represented by the key of the house of David. The verse of this year.
Isaiah 22:22
"And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; and he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open."
--> This is the year for that. I'm believing in it. Setting myself upon the Word.
It may seem silly that a nice train affected me in such a way. That it spurned me into neverending prose, but my prose is my praise. It's how I glorify the works of God in my life. It's how I fractally
Psalms 3:3-4
"But thou, O Jehovah, art a shield about me; My glory and the lifter up of my head. I cry unto Jehovah with my voice, And he answereth me out of his holy hill."
--> I am not my shield. He is my shield. This year I will focus on remembering that daily. I will declare it. I have many responsibilities in God. I am one of them, but not in that way. I am His. It's time to trust. To grow in that. To walk in that.
