Untitled and Undone

I have a confession:  this morning, I got very frustrated with God — it appeared He had set me up to fail.

Here is the background: I have always been an organizer and list-maker, and as a result, am generally able to accomplish a lot in a day.  As I have grown closer to the Lord, He has challenged me to allow Him to be in control of what I do daily.  This is actually something I really want to do as I have learned through the “school of hard knocks” His way is ALWAYS better than my way.

So, I trusted God with every day this week, and He has been faithful.  But my expectation was that today He would give me the blog He wanted me to write, as today is my deadline for maintaining the posting schedule.  Throughout my quiet time with Him, He gave me nothing bloggable.  So, I searched through a pile of notes made on other days, looking for a topic that He might tell me was “the one”.  Nothing.  So then I started reminding God I was under a deadline and was waiting … Nothing.  In complete frustration, I resorted to a variety of manipulations I’ve used in the past to try to get people to do what I want them to do (like guilt-jerking my husband into helping with the housework…it didn’t work with him either.)

THEN, the Lord showed me what was really going on.

  1. In obeying the Lord by allowing Him to order my days and time, I was expecting Him to reward me by adhering to my deadline.
  2. He allowed the test of missing this deadline to expose where my trust in Him was conditional, and where I was still trying to maintain control.
  3. He challenged me with regard to what I believed about myself for missing a deadline; showing me that my belief about myself did not line up with what He thinks of me.
  4. Finally, God let me know that as long as I was demanding He conform to what I believed He needed to do, was not going to do it.

The reason for #4 took my breath away.  I am always looking for the best way to do something, and when I find a method that works, I repeat it.  God’s unfathomable love for me was not about to allow me to sin against Him through the arrogance of coercing and manipulating God Almighty to get what I wanted, then repeat that terrible behavior in the future.  He loves me so much that He was willing to silently endure the false accusation I lobbed of setting me up for failure.    Instead of the condemnation I deserved for my actions this morning, He demonstrated yet again, His unconditional love that defies my behavior and selfish motives – a concept I have difficulty even understanding.  Just as Jesus illustrated through taking my place on the cross, He is always doing the very best thing for me . . . regardless of what it costs Him.  “If we are faithless, He remains faithful …”  2 Timothy 2:13