Do you sometimes have to do things that are mundane, tedious or boring? I hate those kinds of things, but sometimes they are necessary before you can get to the good stuff. You know, like you have to practice your scales before you can start playing Scott Joplin on the piano. Or you have to learn all of the rules before you can start playing a new game. Well, I'm a quilter. I love designing a new quilt, and looking at beautiful fabric, and stitching the top together. But there are some boring parts of the process that I don't like so much. I recently finished putting together a quilt top that I've been working on for the last 4 years. I hand appliqued all of the blocks and spent a lot of time picking out the right border fabric. And now I can't wait to quilt it. But first, I have to baste the layers of the quilt together. I hate that part. It takes so much time to lay it all out and make sure everything lines up correctly and that there are no puckers in the backing or lumps in the batting. The process of basting the layers together seems to take forever and I just want to get to the good stuff.
Last night I was working on the basting and thinking about how much I wished I could just skip that part, when I heard God's voice speaking to me. "I know how much you hate what's happening to you right now, but I want you to know it's necessary." What? You mean You wanted my husband to betray me and you wanted our marriage to end in divorce? That doesn't make sense. But then I thought about who God is. If He is Sovreign, and I know that He is, there is nothing that comes into my life without His permission. If He loves me like He says, and I know that He does, I can trust that whatever He allows in my life is for my good. As I have walked through this valley, I have felt God's presence in my life in a deeper way. Even as He brushes the tears from my eyes, He reminds me of all the ways that He has provided for me.
I know that I will not be in this valley forever, and I really want to get to the other side - to the good stuff - but while I'm here, I want to learn the things that God wants to teach me. I want to learn to depend on Him more, to trust Him more, to love Him more. I know that those things are best learned in the valleys of life. One of my favorite songs is called "If You Want Me To" by Ginny Owens. The first verse says, "The pathway is broken and the signs are unclear, and I don't know the reason, why You brought me here. But just because You love me, the way that You do, I'm gonna walk through the valley, If you want me to." I love that. He loves me so much that I can trust Him to be there with me. And if that's where He wants me to be, that's where I want to be too.
"When they walk through the Valley of Weeping it will become a place of springs where pools of blessing and refreshment collect after rains!" Psalm 84:6 (TLB)
Now that's the good stuff!
Last night I was working on the basting and thinking about how much I wished I could just skip that part, when I heard God's voice speaking to me. "I know how much you hate what's happening to you right now, but I want you to know it's necessary." What? You mean You wanted my husband to betray me and you wanted our marriage to end in divorce? That doesn't make sense. But then I thought about who God is. If He is Sovreign, and I know that He is, there is nothing that comes into my life without His permission. If He loves me like He says, and I know that He does, I can trust that whatever He allows in my life is for my good. As I have walked through this valley, I have felt God's presence in my life in a deeper way. Even as He brushes the tears from my eyes, He reminds me of all the ways that He has provided for me.
I know that I will not be in this valley forever, and I really want to get to the other side - to the good stuff - but while I'm here, I want to learn the things that God wants to teach me. I want to learn to depend on Him more, to trust Him more, to love Him more. I know that those things are best learned in the valleys of life. One of my favorite songs is called "If You Want Me To" by Ginny Owens. The first verse says, "The pathway is broken and the signs are unclear, and I don't know the reason, why You brought me here. But just because You love me, the way that You do, I'm gonna walk through the valley, If you want me to." I love that. He loves me so much that I can trust Him to be there with me. And if that's where He wants me to be, that's where I want to be too.
"When they walk through the Valley of Weeping it will become a place of springs where pools of blessing and refreshment collect after rains!" Psalm 84:6 (TLB)
Now that's the good stuff!
No comments:
Post a Comment