Deliver Me from Evil

But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. ~Psalm 5:11

I haven’t blogged in over 18 months, but I had to write tonight to express my awe at how God has made himself apparent in my life in the last 4 months.  It has truly been an overwhelmingly amazing year so far; I haven’t done anything terribly special, and there haven’t been any “big events,”  but God has done an amazing work in me.  I have changed so much this year; I feel like I have really “come into my own,”  if you will.  I am finally comfortable with this person I am, happy with my life, my girls, my friends; my cup truly does runneth over!  I have been aware of this feeling for several months now, but in the last 2 weeks God has done something so amazing in my life it makes me want to weep.

I am famously impatient; I have never been good at handing my problems to God and allowing him to work through them for me.  I’m more apt to hand them to God, then take them back, convinced I can figure out what He wants along the way.  A few weeks ago, I was prayerfully asking for His guidance in my life; there was something I desparately wanted, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing.  I asked others to pray for me, that I would be able to clearly discern God’s will, and that I could be patient while waiting for Him to let me know when to act.  An opportunity arose, however, before I was able to discern what I was supposed to do.  Rather than waiting for God to clearly answer, I set out on my own.  I even thought I knew the “right” answer; in Bible study we had just discussed the fact that, when at a crossroads in life, the way that looks the easiest is almost always Satan deceiving us.  Satan would never set us upon a path that was clearly difficult, because it would cause us to lean upon God.  Instead he lures us down an easy path before ambushing us into a dark place in which we may find it difficult to cry out to our Father.  I was sure I was choosing the “difficult” path that God would want me to take.  The mistakes just kept adding up from there…

The Enemy is an amazing deceiver; I have faced him many times in my life, but I have never had an encounter like this.  In the past week, Satan laid before me everything I long for deep inside of my heart, and made me believe it could be mine.  Literally every dream I have had for my life in the past several years appeared to be within arm’s reach!  The whole time I was experiencing this temptation I knew something was wrong, but I refused to be obedient to God’s direction.  I kept telling myself that I was confused, that I didn’t know what to do, so I should simply persue my dream, but deep down in the back of my mind I knew I was lying to myself.  I began experiencing a great amount of worry and fear, but I still refused to flee when what I wanted was so close at hand.

Last night I found out the dream was not attainable in any sense of the word; instead of being distraught I immediately felt a great sense of relief and joy.  Oh, don’t get me wrong; there were tears.  My pride was horribly, horribly wounded, and I was embarrassed that  I had chased after something that I knew was wrong.  Just like a child who is disobedient and feels ashamed, I initially wanted to lash out over being told “no.”

I recently read the book “Parenting with Love and Logic;”  one of the tenents of the program is that you should never take a child’s problem away from him unless you know he can’t handle it on his own and he knows that you know he can’t handle it.  Then and only then is it appropriate for you to intervene.  This, my friends, is what my Father did for me. I knew I had gotten myself into a spot that would be difficult to get out of, and I had no idea what to do about it.  I was in so deep I had decided to ignore my misgivings and just “go with it,”  even though I knew the consequences could be life-shattering.  At this point God stepped in and delivered me, before the stakes were so high it would have been difficult to escape.

Tonight as I spoke to a dear sister-friend, I was filled with an immense sense of peace and joy; how amazing it is to think that our GOD would think so much of me that He would intervene in my life to stop me from making a drastic mistake.  Just like a sheep that strayed from the flock, He gently but firmly guided me back onto the marvelous path He has planned for me.  I don’t know what that path has in store, but I truly feel like my life has been truly blessed.   I am only now beginning to understand that He does have a great plan for me, and I can’t wait to continue down the path and discover the details!

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~ by Jenn on April 29, 2011.