The Pull
The Pull
We, the church, address the irony of life no longer being what it was while it’s slowly becoming what it will be with Philippians 3:13.
Look saints! We get it and we are forgetting those things which are behind us and pressing towards the mark.
But we need grace in the press. We need wisdom for life we must live in the in between.
Where is the conversation
centered around what was and what’s yet to become?
How do you suppose I navigate me life in the fog of uncertainty?
If you’ve lived it, show me, or, are you secretly hoping that I conquer it first so that you may borrow my road-map?
If I’m honest, this truth requires a timeout and a nap.
Knowing that my security blanket of life is being snatched from under me, and that I must willingly embrace the pull, makes my head hurt at times.
I’m sitting here in the waiting room of “yet,” temped to massage my will to run for the hills.
But the pull. The pull that keeps me grounded. The subtle pull that keeps telling me I’m right where this season of life requires me to be.
The pull of peace that I can’t put into words.
What is the pull and how is it sustaining me?
Dear pull, please reveal your mystery…
Author: J'Mella Shephard-Hinkston
I’ve found myself in this quiet and unfamiliar place often recently. My thoughts go down a bunny trail of what ifs, why should I, and can’t I just stay here awhile longer? I want to move in the direction of my dreams but the reality of newness has a sure way of halting my stride. I walk along until the yellow brick road runs out, and I’m left to blaze a trail in what appears to be the wilderness. There I stand with frightened eyes, and a palpitating heart when my souls whispers:
Proverbs 20:24 (NLT)
The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way.
Proverbs 20:24 (NIV)
A person’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand their own way
Then and only then do I allow myself to exhale doubt and inhale the truth – he’s got me.
He’s given me the ability to dream my wildest dreams and to write my elaborate vision(s). But in my dreaming, writing and planning I must remember this:
Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)
We make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps
Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
Too often we assume our liberty to dream, write and plan means that we’ve been given control. Not so, dear! We make our plans but the Lord establishes our steps – meaning he creates the steps associated with his plan(s) for our lives. This thought takes me back to Jeremiah 29:11. I finally get it! He knows the plans, because he’s established the steps! He's leading me down the path of my expected end, this is the pull.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Honey, I trust his will for me because it’s leading me towards hope and a future. Then the dust settles and here I am still standing on the edge of the yellow brick road heading into my wilderness. My heart tells me to run full speed ahead while, my mind says, girl you’re not cut out for this. My head reminds me that I’m terrified of unfamiliarity, and that I’ll have to learn a new set of norms, while my heart cries out a quote by Shuana Neiquist “But I know that discomfort is the way through, so I began.”
And so I begin, with small steps of course. I do way with the notion that I've got to figure this thing out from start to finish before I can begin, which, if I may say so, is MAJOR! I trash the concept of tossing out my old playbooks (more like old journals), to create new ones for this journey. Instead I ponder on past wins and pitfalls. I do what I know to do until I learn what to do next. And as I do this, I feel myself drifting away from my well thought out dreams a vision into the rhythm of my established steps.
