Skipping Stones While I Wait

I've been restless for a really long time.
In fact, I suspect I was born restless.
Always, there's been a sense of something more than this, and I don't mean the obvious, as in eternity and being homesick for eternity.  Something more, here, in this life.  Always, there's been an intense longing to "help", to be a difference.  For the longest time, in my de-personalized days, I didn't give a crap, but even under that layer of deception, when the enemy tried to take me out, the core of me was still the core of me, and that core has always seen and cared deeply about injustice and inequity...and wanting to do something about it is what has always had me restless...either that, or I just simply bore easy (hence my tendency to escape into frivolous entertainment)

The restlessness has often compelled me to strive forward, in search of whatever "it" is that I think I can fix, when inside I perceive that I ought to be waiting.  Waiting is really hard for one born restless and impatient.  Maybe that's the point of all this waiting.  To teach me contentment and patience.   Waiting is really hard for one who tends to make things happen, for one who enjoys and longs for change.  Maybe that's the point of all this waiting.  To teach me that I in fact can change nothing and no one - at least not sustainably - that change is really God's purview, and I'm just along for the ride.  Waiting is really hard for one who struggles to trust.  Maybe that's the point of all this waiting.  To teach me to get back the child like faith and trust that I've wrestled with and in since that day, when I was 4, and my world shifted upside down and all around.

Waiting is not so hard for someone who learned  perseverance and resilience the hard way...though isn't that the only way to learn these?  Both of these gifts resulted from the same shifting world and I'm actually thankful for them, but even so,  they - perseverance and resilience - can always use strengthening with more waiting.

In the restlessness I'm always looking for answers in the here and now.  I want to know "what's next", so I can hurry up and get there. I've discovered that when it comes to problems, big and small, I am solution oriented and in a hurry to orient everyone to my solution.  As a result, I've been focused on what could possibly be at the end of the journey,  instead of enjoying the journey and the God who has asked me to take it. 

Two things happened this past week to clarify this for me.

The first one was on Monday, April 22...I was walking down Fraser Street in Vancouver with 3 other women, and stranger - a woman - stopped us and asked if she could pray for us.  She then had a word for each of us.  She started with my friends, and prophesied over each of them, while I mused.  Then she turned to me....and said...

"Ok, I see a picture, you're on a beach, and you're skipping stones.  You're skipping stones and thinking, thinking, thinking.  You've been thinking and skipping stones for a long time, there's been a long time of waiting, and you're still waiting, and wondering at the waiting.  There's something about the skipping stones, like you think maybe they're not important, and all the waiting, you're wondering about, and there is still more waiting, even still.  But while you've been skipping stones, and thinking, thinking, thinking, and waiting and waiting,  God has been planting you right on the beach, next to the living water...you're roots are going down so very deep, so deep into Him, and He's making you into this huge tree  with branchs and shade leaves. He's been preparing you, pouring His word, and wisdom into you.  God has been planting and rooting you all this time, and I see a forest surrounding you, and there's a clearing, then the forest all around you, and I see faces, many people, peeking out from the trees of the forest, to see if it's safe to come out, and it is safe, and they start to come out of the forest, and go to you, God is saying, "they'll be coming to you" , He will bring them to you,  you don't have to go looking for them, they'll come to you, and they'll  find safety and life under your branchs, shade and rest there, in the life giving Word that you teach them, and healing, all sorts of healing....

I've had someone speak a word similar to this over me before...that I started out as a fragile tree but that God has been healing me, and  my roots would go down deep, that I would be unswayed and unwavered by what is coming, and that people would find life under my branches....so I believe that this woman's word was geniune and of the Lord.

Then, on the weekend, at the ladies retreat for my church, I was profoundly convicted that I had been focusing everything on my equipping and preparation, with a mind to determine what it is that God has for me...and had taken my eyes off Jesus in the process.   I cannot qualify myself for anything that God has in store in me.  All I can do is keep my eyes on Him, live a life surrendered to His will and His way and allow myself to be an instrument in His hands...

God told Abraham to leave the land of his fathers, to go to the land that God will show him...in other words, Abraham did not know his final destination, his landing place, the "end".  He only knew the promise, and then got so focused on the promise that he did many things in his own power to make the promise happen...that's what I've done.  I have strived for the promise and got my eyes and heart off the Promise Giver.   I've been striving to know the end, while striving with the means to the end, the whole time focused on me, the preparation and future possibilities. My possibilities are no match for God's certainties...He created me and He created good works for me to do, and as I rest in Him, He brings it all together.

Finally, I have fond memories of skipping stones...standing on a beach, alone, and just skipping stones.  It was not a waste of time in my mind back then, in fact, skipping stones over smooth, glassy water was one of those few and far between tranquil times I enjoyed as a kid...I think God was telling me that He has that kind of carefree tranquility in mind for each of us, while He guides and leads each of  us into the destiny He's prepared.

Go...into the destiny that I WILL show you...the destiny is the entire journey, and we enter it one step, one day at a time, even when we think we're just skipping stones and waiting.