At the end of every year, don’t we all have a tendency to look back and take an inventory of our lives? I do. I looked back over this past year and realized the many giants I faced and I breathe a prayer of thanks to my Heavenly Father for not giving up on me or getting frustrated with me.
God is so patient. I can be so stubborn at times…wanting to do things my way or wanting to see things go the way I think they should go….me, my, I…but then God reminds me that His thoughts are bigger than my thoughts and His ways are bigger than my ways. It’s true. I think I know what is best but I don’t. Not at all. I don’t know the heart of other people involved. I can take a guess from what I see but is that REALLY the truth? Only God can see the truth…ALL of the truth. I mean…God sees the pain, the disappointment, the struggles, the betrayal, the loss, the fear…I only see what I’m allowed to see from that person’s heart and then make assumptions from what I see. Hmmmm….
So I face the giant with little knowledge of what I’m up against. I just know it doesn’t feel so good and I want that feeling to stop. And when I have exhausted my own strength…because that’s what I do…(I face the giant with my own evaluation of the situation…making my guesses and my assumptions based on what I see with my own eyes and what I think is going on.) Evaluating with my little mind. When I have finally realized that I actually know nothing at all…then I look to THE ONE who knows everything and I give up the fight. Because the fight is with me, myself and I…”It’s not fair!!!” I scream at my Heavenly Father who is not surprised by my ranting because He has been watching over me this whole time. And then the emotions of my own heart that I’ve kept all nicely bottled up begins to erupt in waves of regret, disappointment, fear, insecurity, unworthiness, hurt, brokenness…and so this is what I’ve been fighting…really…me, myself and I.
So the giants that I have had to face over this past year have been a blessing in disguise…because when I finally give up the fight and come face to face with that which is within me and lay down my ways and my thoughts to God’s sovereignty, I find peace. I give myself a pep talk. “It is what it is. Submit to the sovereignty of the Lord. Trust Him. He sees all. He knows all. He loves all. His way is better. Give it up, Jill.” So I look up and trust Him a little more. And with each situation that takes me by surprise or doesn’t go my way…I fall to my knees…eventually…some times sooner than other times….and that’s when my grip loosens and The Father rushes in with the calm of His peace and the anchor of His hope and the strength of His grace and those familiar feelings of despair, of not being good enough, of being forgotten…slip away with the tide as His waves of love wash over my weary soul. And I am grateful that He is not ashamed to call me His own. Always His. Never forgotten. Never alone. Always loved…always. I bow my head and my heart to THE ONE who paid the price of death so that I could live.
Giants are just that…giants. They are bigger than me…in every way…bigger. But I smile because I have SOMEONE on my side who fights the giants for me who is way bigger than any giant. And I am glad. I just have to trust HIM – The One True God who made heaven and earth and all that is in them in 6 days and then propped His feet up on the earth as His footstool and rested on the 7th. The earth is His footstool (Is. 66:1; Matt.5:35). Think about it…that’s a big GOD…bigger than any giant I would ever have to face.