My first thought was happiness but being happy is too
shallow. My thoughts turned to joy but
that is selfish too. If God is really asking me what I want out of life,
those answers didn’t seem to cut it. I
thought of love but I have love so it’s not missing from my life.
God turned my attention over to the prayers I have been
sending up lately. Prayers to sell this
house and to provide another place for us to live as we move and for us to be
successful at our new jobs. So he asked
me, “Is it money and success you want out of life?” And although that was what I had been praying
for, I knew it wasn’t what was missing either. He then brought my constant prayers to my
attention, the ones for my family, friends and church. Do you want the ones you love to always be
safe? And this one sounded the most appealing. I especially want my children to live a long
safe life but I was left feeling that this isn’t quite it either.
I thought long and hard about this and since I already have
a relationship with God, I knew it wasn’t God missing from my life. What is it that I keep wanting, but don’t
quite have that I can’t put my finger on?
What is it that I know I once had but now in its absence I can’t figure out what it is?
Then my answer came but It came as a question, I said “Faithfulness?”
It didn’t seem that could be it. Faithfulness?
I have faith! I know Jesus died
on the cross for my sins and I know I am going to heaven. I read my Bible and go to church and try to
do the right thing. Why would
faithfulness be what I am lacking?
Then the flashbacks came from this entire year. The huge disappointments, the betrayals, the
way life has taken us in a direction we never thought it would take. The hurt and the pain that has drove us to
want to take things into our own hands.
The gratefulness for their being a safe place to fall but the resentment
of our other plans not working out. All
of these things pointed to not being faithful to God’s ultimate plan. That the hurt and the pain had to happen to
drag us to where God wanted us to be. We
wouldn’t have left on our own and so God had to hand deliver us. The emphasis for us the past several months
has been on what God has taken from us but God is showing us He has given us
more than He took away.
So now I know what I want out of life. I want faithfulness. I want to be faithful to God. I want to do His will not my own. I want to feel his faithfulness each
day. As a by-product of this
faithfulness, I will find joy, there will be days of happiness, and by faith I
know God will provide for our family what we need and that He will provide
safety. I know by faith He has every
detail of our life already planned out.
I know all of this because I have lived all of this. I have had faith through everything although
it was just a mustard seed. It took
faith to keep moving through the pain. I
never lost my faith but faithfulness is
much deeper. Faith is knowing what the
Bible says and finding hope in a scripture. Faithfulness is believing it and
living it out in our life. Faithfulness is full surrender to His word and to
His will not just knowing His Word and praying for His will. Somewhere through the journey I held tight to my faith but lost my faithfulness. I would have never figured this out on my own. God saved me from myself once again!