When God brings us low

At the height of what I considered to be my most fulfilling part of my life, I was on a high - cloud nine.  I went from struggling over my past and never getting beyond it, to God literally ripping me from the cord that was wrapped about my waist and I began to be able to love and reach out to others all around me.  It was truly a remarkable time and I remember the joy I had at God setting me free.  It was a miracle.  God began using me to encourage others and to love them and bring them into my life.  He especially gave me a love for the hurting, the lonely, the rejected, the outcast, the addicted and unwanted.  There was so much passion and life I felt and it was like there was this never ending flow to give out.  It was the height of heights and when one is flowing in their passion and everything seems to be working and God is moving, there is nothing seeming better.  I was liked.  I was admired.  I didn't do these things to be liked and admired, but I didn't know the pitfall that can occur when you get to taste a steady steam of that with others.  

I sit here today after a few years removed from the "height" of that wonderful season.  Sometimes I long for that again. But I only want it when I look back.  As I sit here on this overcast day, I realized something.  God used these last few years to bring me very low.  The thing is, I'm not that person I was when I was trapped in my past.  I'm not the person I was when the wonderful fulfilling ministry was at it's height.  I'm a totally different person now.  God has His most carefully tendered way of pruning His tree's so they bare fruit in His season.  I'm in such a low place that I have to tell Him that I need all of His power & grace to move forward in anything.  Even small things that once before I felt so confident to rush forward in at full speed ahead.

And as I sit here and think of how little confidence I have in myself to do anything, it's like a light bulb went off.  I seriously don't want to take a single step in any direction without crying out to Him for guidance.  I know this may not be a popular viewpoint as we are all in differing processes of growth in our walk with Christ.  But I'm here now.  And I don't know what He may want me to step out and do.  I don't have the heart to just jump up and rush out to do things.  But whatever He wants of me, I know I will need all that He is - all His power, all His joy, all His strength to do it.  Even in the smallest of things that go unseen, I will need Him.  This is what the hardship, the betrayal, the disappointments, the injustices have done for me in my walk with Christ.  If it has brought me so low that I learn to put no confidence in my own self and abilities, I think this is exactly where He wants me.  He is the potter.  I am the clay.

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