Monday, November 3, 2014

PSALM 143 - Dream Trips

Answer me quickly, Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not Your face from me lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of Your steadfast love, for in You I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul.  (Verses 7-8)

Ever feel like you're driving without a map? That essentially God has told you to get in the car and head out without telling you the destination? It's like that, isn't, sometimes. Maybe always, for that matter. If we commit our lives to a prescient, preeminent, omniscient God, we are probably not going to know all there is to know about our journey with Him through life. On occasion, we can look in the rearview mirror and see where we've been. Rejoice over the miles covered or over the fact we left that particular place behind. I've had inklings of the direction I'm going in, but often I'm wrong and the next stop is a complete surprise. There have been fender-benders and train wrecks along my way, often the result of my stopping at the nearest gas station and asking for directions. In real life a good idea, maybe, but not in my spiritual walk. Only One has the map. He's the One I must trust to get me where He wants me to go.

I think that's why the "Answer me quickly!" prayer is such a stresser. We are at a crossroads or a stop sign and we fumble with "Which way now?" If we sit there long enough, we get terribly frustrated. Feel forgotten as we see others pass by to the right or left with their destinations in tact. Or we notice the freight train coming down the tracks we're sitting on. Cry out, "Do You see this, Lord!" And that is at the root of the journey for us. Is God with us? Because if He isn't, we are like the rest of the world from whom His face is hidden. They've mapped out their own courses and don't want His help, so they whiz past us on the road to ultimate destruction while we sit in PARK waiting for the next turn in the road.

This is nothing new with the Lord. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt into the desert without a map. He wanted to lead them day by day. Provide for them in ways they couldn't have imagined. Remember, manna means "what is it?" Food they'd never seen. Moses struck a rock in the desert with his stick and out gushed enough water for over a million people. Rocks don't typically contain that kind of water. Even before Moses, God told Abram and Sarai, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." Abram was seventy-five years old when he and his wife packed up in faith on that simple word. They had no idea where God was taking them, only that He'd promised to bless them and make a great nation from their offspring (which was nonexistent at that moment). Jesus met some men fishing one day and said, "Come with me and I will make you fishers of men." Something about the way He said it, something about the calling in their hearts or the look in the eyes of the Son of Man...something whispered, "This is your journey." There is no real wandering around when God calls us to ride along with Him. He has a dream trip for us, One He's planned since before He threw out the stars and pushed up the mountains. And He's willing to let us know the way a step at a time.

Let's say God gave us the map of our whole lives when we were born. Handed it to our mother and father. "Here's what Kay is going to do." The possibilities are preposterously large that not only my parents, but I, would shortcut it, change it up because, heck, I don't want to go there! We'd be so discouraged by the stops and starts, the detours and wrecks, we might just decide to not get into the car. So we must trust the Destination Planner loves us. Has designed the journey and is faithful to get us to the end of it. There are days, like this one for David, the psalmist, when we need to know God loves us in order to step out in faith toward what He wants for our lives or sit and wait for what's next. Every morning it's our privilege to ask for directions before we take one step into our destinies. To trust that we are precious even when we are waiting for what seems an eternity at a red light. To heed the caution light. To go when it is green. For Abram and Sarai, for Moses and the Jewish nation, for the disciples and for us, our walking step by step is an act of faith, a test of it, too. In my acknowledgment that I will go where He wants me to go and do what He wants me to do, I also acknowledge His steadfast love. Oh, God is planting His foot into my next step so that I can put my tiny one right there in His footprint. I'm sure of this! The journey has taken me into unexpected territory thus far. Lord, lead me on!

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.   Isaiah 30

No comments:

Post a Comment