A few months ago my hubby
and I were asked by God to change the way we were living our life. We were already serving Him and doing His
will as we knew it to be, but He threw a challenge out there to me. He asked, “How much was I willing to trust
Him? Was I ready to give everything up as I knew it, to follow Him to something
bigger He had for my life?” I am not
sharing any of this to pat myself or my hubby on the back… all I can say is God
woke me up at
As a kid I can remember
playing with a sliding tile puzzle… maybe some of you don’t even know what I am
talking about. It is a hand-held plastic game board, about 3”x 3”, that had 15
interlocking tiles that you would slide around trying to put all the tiles in
order to make a picture or to get the numbers in order. Each tile was important to the puzzle, and
each move you made could make it or break it.
There would be many times I would slide the same piece around in a “circle”
trying to get it to go where it belonged. I must confess there were times I
tried to cheat by popping a tile out so I could solve it easily… that never
worked though because even if I could get it popped out I could not get it
pushed back in!
That is how my life feels
sometimes lately… like a sliding tile puzzle!
God has every piece of my life in His hands and He has to be the one to
make the picture. There are many days I
try to slide a tile into a different position and that usually just scrambles
things all the more. I can only see one
piece at a time… and some days maybe not even the whole piece… but God can see
the whole picture.
Okay, so here is my fleshly
truth… there are moments or even days that I want to turn back from this
path. It seems too hard when I feel like
I don’t know where I belong. I feel
lonely and isolated, and let’s face it… just plain impatient! I know God knows what He is doing, but does
He have to take so long to do it??? Really?!
And God’s truth… He knows the
plans He has for me, plans for peace and not harm, and a future filled with
hope (Jeremiah 29:11). He also has
promised never to leave me (Hebrews 13:5) He said, if I love Him I will be obedient
to His Word ( John 14:23 , 2 John 1:6). And just like
Jesus said to Peter when Peter wanted to walk on water to come to Jesus, but
failed… “You of little faith, why do you doubt?” Matthew 14:31
That is it… there really can
be no arguing with God’s truth! I cannot live by how I feel which changes from
moment to moment! I have God’s solid truth to stand on. I may be only a dot in His big picture, but
it is okay… that is where faith and trust have to come into play. I must trust Him enough to go where He says
to go, move where He says to move, and speak what He says to speak.
When God asked us to make
this change and we decided to follow… the first step He gave us was to leave
the church where we were happy and content.
He was asking us to go to a smaller church that needed more people with
hearts to serve… a church a distance from where we live and we didn’t really
know too many people there. We could
have said no… but it was not about us.
If church was only suppose to be a “social club” than it would have been
easy to say no. What does church mean to
you? Why do you attend the church you
do? Are you investing your time and
talents there? Is it for the people that are there… is it for the pastor… is it
for the music… or are you where God has called you to be? There have been so many people leaving their
churches lately because they don’t like how things are changing or they have
taken an offense of how someone was treated.
Are those good reasons to leave a church? What would happen if we all chose to go where
God told us to go… or stay where God told us to stay? Are you unhappy in your church… make sure you
check your heart before you do anything… the grass is not always greener,
especially if God is not directing it. We all are a dot in His picture, but if your
dot is not in the place where He wants you… will His picture be distorted?
Hmmm, I wonder.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
I don’t know what you are
going through, but God does… He cares.
Cry out to Him and lay yourself at His feet. When feelings start to overtake remember His
Truth! Lord, I pray for each person that reads this… help us to keep our eyes
focused on You… the One that holds life in His hands. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Rejoicing in Truth!
2 comments:
Great message, I totally agree! I too use to play the little sliding puzzle games, and like you said the funny thing is after awhile of not being able to figure out how to put the puzzle together in our own timing, or if it looked too difficult to figure out, I would pop off the pieces and arrange them myself. That so relates to everyday life. God is working in our lives, it takes time for our "puzzle" to get put together because he is working on us in the process, and we need to trust in His timing instead of trying to pop off the pieces just to get to the end result as quick as we can. What do we really learn or how do we really develop into people of faith if we try to take the short cut to get immediate results or try doing things in our own timing how we think it should be done. God's timing is always perfect! And He wants us to listen to him every step of the way, as I relate it to the puzzle, with every slide of a puzzle piece. He wants us to hear His voice and choose to trust Him and His timing. But it takes listening to His voice directing our steps over and over. So many of us just want to get a yes or no answer from God so we can come to a quick decision on where he wants to lead us, but God wants more of a relationship with us that that. He wants us to depend and rely on hearing his voice over and over. We can't base our lives on how we feel in the moment, if we did, we would be the ones popping off the puzzle pieces and in the process truly missing out on God working in us and through us. We are the church, there will be changes that sometimes we don't feel comfortable with, but I encourage people to ask God what He wants you to learn through the process of change. Trust God, He knows what He is doing and if we believe in His promises we will believe that He is in control. Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. These are his words, it is a done deal, we just need to be the ones that are willing to let him put the puzzle together and trust Him in the process, instead of being telling him to just pop off the pieces so we can see the end results in our timing~
Great message, I totally agree! I too use to play the little sliding puzzle games, and like you said the funny thing is after awhile of not being able to figure out how to put the puzzle together in our own timing, or if it looked too difficult to figure out, I would pop off the pieces and arrange them myself. That so relates to everyday life. God is working in our lives, it takes time for our "puzzle" to get put together because he is working on us in the process, and we need to trust in His timing instead of trying to pop off the pieces just to get to the end result as quick as we can. What do we really learn or how do we really develop into people of faith if we try to take the short cut to get immediate results or try doing things in our own timing how we think it should be done. God's timing is always perfect! And He wants us to listen to him every step of the way, as I relate it to the puzzle, with every slide of a puzzle piece. He wants us to hear His voice and choose to trust Him and His timing. But it takes listening to His voice directing our steps over and over. So many of us just want to get a yes or no answer from God so we can come to a quick decision on where he wants to lead us, but God wants more of a relationship with us that that. He wants us to depend and rely on hearing his voice over and over. We can't base our lives on how we feel in the moment, if we did, we would be the ones popping off the puzzle pieces and in the process truly missing out on God working in us and through us. We are the church, there will be changes that sometimes we don't feel comfortable with, but I encourage people to ask God what He wants you to learn through the process of change. Trust God, He knows what He is doing and if we believe in His promises we will believe that He is in control. Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. These are his words, it is a done deal, we just need to be the ones that are willing to let him put the puzzle together and trust Him in the process, instead of being telling him to just pop off the pieces so we can see the end results in our timing~
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