This week's wonderful blog post is from an anonymous guest blogger. Enjoy!
Last week I got a phone call from a very stressed sister of mine. In the middle of a move to a new apartment with a new roommate, she had been feeling keenly some anxiety of the unknown. She was already committed to the arrangement and short of quitting her job and moving into our parent's garage her options were fairly limited. All the same, the fear had made her start to doubt the decision she had been so excited for just a few days previous. I asked her if she liked the new apartment. She said yes. I asked her if she preferred living with her new roommate to her old one. Again, she affirmed. I asked her if she'd prayed about her decision. Her answer was yes, but she hadn't been told exactly what to do.
Life is complicated. Full of forks in the road, twists, turns, and even some off-reading at times. But one thing in life is consistent: if you want something to happen, you have to start moving. Sometimes I think that when we have important decisions to make, we want someone to tell us what to do. The stakes are too high. We don't have experience. Someone, clearly, must know better. But God does not always work that way. If you always wait to be told what to do before you act, you effectively paralyze yourself. If you are too afraid to go right because of missing what is to the left, you will never reach the beach or the mountains. And as you stand there, frozen in indecision, when life does come around and happen to you, you're far more likely to be run over than taken anywhere you wanted to go.
Sometimes God doesn't make our choices for us, but this is a blessing. It is a chance for growth and a sign of His trust. Sometimes He needs us to learn to become initiators instead of followers. And in these situations I have learned that it can be much more beneficial to pray to know if ours is a good choice, not if it is the right one.
The next day I received another phone call from my sister. As soon as she understood where her anxiety was coming from, her feelings toward the new living arrangement improved. It wasn't till after she moved forward that the peace about her decision came. If we can just trust that God is not abandoning when we get to choose, wonderful opportunities unfold and we can gain an increase in love for Him and confidence in ourselves.
Life is complicated. Full of forks in the road, twists, turns, and even some off-reading at times. But one thing in life is consistent: if you want something to happen, you have to start moving. Sometimes I think that when we have important decisions to make, we want someone to tell us what to do. The stakes are too high. We don't have experience. Someone, clearly, must know better. But God does not always work that way. If you always wait to be told what to do before you act, you effectively paralyze yourself. If you are too afraid to go right because of missing what is to the left, you will never reach the beach or the mountains. And as you stand there, frozen in indecision, when life does come around and happen to you, you're far more likely to be run over than taken anywhere you wanted to go.
Sometimes God doesn't make our choices for us, but this is a blessing. It is a chance for growth and a sign of His trust. Sometimes He needs us to learn to become initiators instead of followers. And in these situations I have learned that it can be much more beneficial to pray to know if ours is a good choice, not if it is the right one.
The next day I received another phone call from my sister. As soon as she understood where her anxiety was coming from, her feelings toward the new living arrangement improved. It wasn't till after she moved forward that the peace about her decision came. If we can just trust that God is not abandoning when we get to choose, wonderful opportunities unfold and we can gain an increase in love for Him and confidence in ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment