"The duration of your season is determined by how long it takes for you to learn it's lesson"
It's been said that you can't run from yourself. We can change jobs, churches, marriages, but the one thing they will always have in common is us! The patterns will repeat as long as we stay the same. We can try and shift the blame, play the victim and avoid the truth, but nothing will change unless we do, unless we come to grips with the fact that there is something within us, a lesson that needs to be learned, that keeps us in this holding pattern in our life.
There are 2 people we can never hide from. God and ourselves.
I started this post back in April, 2018. It is now May 25, 2018 and I am just getting around to finishing it. Truth be told, I have been struggling with this very topic. MYSELF. I often find myself taking 2 steps forward and then it seems like I take 100 steps back. I find a rhythm, and then something happens and I get tripped up and retreat to care for my wounds. It is a cycle that I am very aware of, and one I absolutely need to break for myself. I know I am not alone in this struggle. So many have had, what seems to be, one wave after another come crashing over them that it leaves us gasping for breath and then afraid to ever step back out on the waters. We feel safer sitting on the shore watching everyone else.
Is this all there is for you and me? A lifetime of sitting by the shore WATCHING? Today I came across a post by one of my Facebook Friends, Joshua Baeza. He wrote, "The moment you get comfortable with where you are, in any area of your life, is the exact moment you become in danger of losing the opportunity of getting to see yourself reach your fullest potential".
It was this post that kicked me out of my own pity party, got me up off my couch, into the shower and back on my computer to write this post. I had become comfortable to sit on the shore. I had allowed the waves to determine the depth of my "water walking faith". I had allowed my fleshly eyes to blind my spiritual ones. But the GOOD NEWS IS, God's Word says, "a righteous man may fall 7 times, but he GETS BACK UP!". While I would rather just not fall, lol, I am glad that I know to get back up. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to confront our cycles and mindsets. We have to DO what we know to do. I KNOW alot of the Word of God. I know WHAT to do, but where I have er'd is in the DOING!!! Why? Because at some point, I gave up. At some point, I decided I was tired of treading water and swam to the shore and got out of the water all together. BUT GOD! Where you and I want to just get out, God leads us back in! Where we want to quit, He reminds us we are more than conquerors. Where we want to hide in the dark, He comes in and shines His light.
I don't know about you, but I am so thankful He does. I don't know how or when all of these pieces will come together and make sense, but I know He is not a God of incomplete work. My life, my story is a work in progress, as is yours. All we are charged to do is walk with Him and listen to the still, soft voice. Sometimes, it comes via a Facebook post, as it did for me today. If we pray, each and every day, to be more aware of His presence in our lives, we will see that He is always talking to us and leading us.
It is up to us to listen and take action.