We may hardly ever realise just how much we are pushing God out of our lives until we come to a point of accepting what God has always been saying to us. There is always one thing or another that we want differently. The key question for the genuine devotee is, “Where am I saying no?”
We hear God on a particular subject, and we just cannot go there, and we unconsciously say, “No; no God, not that way! I can’t go there,” or “I won’t go there.”
I say this in a full recognition that I have been pushing a vision of what I have wanted, in the way and manner of serving God, and I have simultaneously been pushing God’s vision away. I only saw this after God had changed my heart to accept what God wanted me to do (and be). Suddenly I was curious as to why I was so open to this thing I was previously so closed off about. Then, as God often does, I received a vision in the shower.
God says, “When you do this thing I want you to do, when you are the person I want you to be, I will open every doorway in your path. And your paths shall be straight. Indeed, you will know you will be doing my will when the doors begin to open. I have been keeping certain doors closed for your own protection and to protect my will for you. Thank you that you are beginning to trust me in this now. Keep that up.”
But, of course, if our hearts have changed — and God did it, because we can’t do that on our own — and we can enter something we were previously stubbornly resistant about, walking in that way is pretty simple, because our hearts have changed. So it is God’s timing, because until we are sick and tired of being sick and tired of insisting on our own way, we won’t be open to having our hearts changed.
It is the case that God can be honest with us when we are ready to hear God be honest. So gentle and patient is the Spirit of God in this way, we don’t ever recognise that God was pushing the divine will our way, but when we are honest, we recognise it was always there. If you can’t discern what God is patiently and gently pushing your way, listen to what the wise people in your life are gently and patiently saying.
When we have received from God that thing that he desperately wants us to do or be and we no longer reject it, this is when we are close to God and our healing.
And finally, I really do need to say, my concept of healing is a spiritual concept. If we could call Paul ‘healed’ and he suffered a ‘thorn in his flesh’ (2 Corinthians 12:7) there is a presence of peace or of wholeness or shalom, acceptance is another word, that we carry about us, as we can imagine Paul did (Philippians 4:6-9; 12-13). This is a ‘healing’ that superintends any bargaining for physical or tangible healing we might be tempted to engage in, and I see this as a healing that amalgamates joy within grief that acceptably laments the reality of life. THIS is what I feel many people lack in life; to experience a joy beyond any circumstance; and that’s inherently biblical.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
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