Called To A Large Place

The call was clear. During the period of my resistance to God - the period where my pencil was hovering over the choice of A or B but I was really holding out for the sudden appearance of a non-existent Option C - the call of God in my life was loud and clear. "Trust Me." Over and over again I heard Him say it. Over and over again, I ignored it. Still, as resistant and afraid as I was, there was a deep longing within me to relinquish everything over to Him. I was tired. I knew what the Bible says: that God is good, He dearly loves us, He is trustworthy. These truths about Him just didn't look like I wanted them to. I wanted to trust Him. I wanted to be done with the fight. I couldn't articulate it at the time, but I've come to know now that there is REST in trusting Him. I needed and craved that rest.

"Cease striving and know that I am God." I was expending so much energy in striving, searching for the elusive "safe enough" existence this side of heaven. I seemed to think I would find it somewhere in between a life given over to God's care and a life still much in my own guardianship. Walking a fence can be very tiring. Imagine that literally for a moment. Not a wall. A fence. A skinny wooden fence, or a chain link fence. Your footing is only going to be about 2 inches maximum. Teetering, tottering, grasping the air for balance, feet sore and slipping, muscles tense and ever on guard for the next little crisis of the walk.

Psalm 31:8b says "You have set my feet in a large place." After a precarious journey - on a fence or up the treacherous cliff side of some hardship - a large place sounds mighty good. I wanted that large place where I could find rest for my tired and sore spiritual "feet". It was my soul that longed for the rest. Deep inside I think I knew the rest I craved would be found on the other side of relinquishing the battle and accepting the safety offered by God. I knew I needed to come to the place where His "safe' for me, was safe enough for me.  The large place with sure footing that I longed for was only to be found in trusting God with all of me.

A friend of mine once went to a wilderness camp with the girls she was leading in a Bible Study. Doing a week long wilderness hike was definitely not something my friend was interested in but that's what these girls wanted to do. They had been together in this Bible study since they were Freshman and now they were Seniors. My friend lovingly and bravely agreed to join them in their last summer camp experience as a group. One day on their journey, they had to rappel down the side of a cliff. My friend was terrified. There was no way around it, she had to do it. She watched as everyone else descended down. Way too soon it was her turn. She was buckled in and given the instructions she'd heard a number of times already as they were told to the rest of the party. She inched her way off the edge, holding tightly to the ropes with her arms. "Trust the rope!" was shouted from above and below. She couldn't. She was too afraid. She rappelled down the whole way clutching the rope for dear life, believing she had to support herself with her own strength. By the time she got to the bottom her arms were shaking from trying to support her whole body weight and, she thought, keep herself from falling. If only she had trusted the rope. She didn't believe the rope was trustworthy. She didn't believe the rope would hold her. She didn't feel safe with the rope carrying her. She thought she had to do it herself with her own inadequate strength.

Years ago when I was first going through Christian counseling and support group studies I had a sense that I was clinging to something, desperately clutching something. I envisioned a tangible something, like a post or a fence pole and I could see myself almost glued to it, clutching it and holding onto it with every fiber of my being, much like my friend and her repelling rope. I didn't know what it was, but I had the strong sense that I was clinging to it desperately. In the years since, I've come to believe what I want most to cling to is a multi-headed monster. I want to keep clutching for Control - trying to manage my world and keep it safe and comfortable by my definitions, Fear - as a means of trying to control my world, and Self - my way, my wants, my needs, (my, my, my), also as a means of trying to make my world safe and comfortable.

Yet, God's call was clear to me. "Trust Me.' I didn't even know how. I prayed for him to pry my fingers off that pole one at a time if He had to, and teach me how to trust Him. In the next couple of posts I'll tell you a couple of ways He began prying my fingers loose.