This is sorta a follow up to some thoughts I posted earlier here.
One of the things I enjoy most about being married is how my wife speaks to me. Often Christians are asked “how do you hear God”? People think his voice comes down from on high, booming through the clouds or burning shrubbery. Truth is it’s usually a whisper or a feeling in your spirit as much as anything. An urging or a “gut feeling”. However, when his voice is spoken, it often comes in the form of your spouse’s voice. Usually without realizing it, and as a result of submission to God, my wife will speak revelation into my life. She doesn’t realize it when saying it, but it’s something I’ve felt in my spirit before but simply brushed it off as me being me.
Recently we’ve begun adopting a mantra or motto of sorts around our house. Our family, as every other one is, seems faced with a series of challenges. They come from all sorts of sources, but each of them is equally large in our sight. Another thing that I find myself doing is trying to force things in my life. Force changes or force things through social media interactions, trying to sway things in my direction or the way I believe they’re supposed to go. In the same vein I’ve also tried to force the solution to situations by actively and aggressively pursuing what I’ve already asked God to provide for us, believing it someday will come.
Now none of this is a bad thing necessarily, and none of the things I’m trying to force are either. Many of them are needs or wants – some urgent – of our family. I was working towards bringing about positive changes in these areas while reducing their fiscal or other impact. At times some creative solutions were pursued. But here’s the one kicker:
None of them ever came to be, no matter how hard or long I pushed it.
Back to our family mantra. It came from my wife really, but after it had begun to weigh in my spirit. It goes simply “leave it be”. My wife wondered aloud one night that perhaps I was pushing things too hard hoping for something when, in fact, I should just be releasing it before God. A few situations in my life immediately popped into my head. Situations that, up until very recently, I had been driving hard on my own power towards a goal; and failing. I made the deliberate choice to “cut them loose” and basically said in prayer one day, “alright God, this one’s in your hands now”. And wouldn’t you know it, things happened on their own better than I could had made it. Every. Single. Time.
An example is my writing, something I gave up a month back. I was using Twitter, Facebook and community websites to try and cram my book, and myself, down the throats of authors and readers alike. Every agent I queried rejected the manuscript. No matter how hard I pushed trying to get things done my way, doors just slammed in my face harder. After I made the decision to shut it down I severed all my connections to anything publishing. I unfollowed all the agents/publishers/authors. I removed Facebook likes and just stopped joining conversations. However, despite completely abandoning my manuscript, it seems God’s not done with it yet. Very recently my work saw a flurry of conversation on BookCountry. The results were some positive and practical feedback, stuff that re-ignited the creative fires. Perhaps this book needs to be done. Moving forward, however, I won’t try and force it to be done my way. I’m just going to leave it be.
Leave it be.
It seems applying this to another important aspect of my life has worked too. After aggressively trying to pursue a solution about 6 months ago I just laid it at God’s feet in prayer and walked away. Wouldn’t you know it, just recently a solution presented itself quite literally at random. No intervention on my part. Hmm. Perhaps there’s something to this.
Leave it be.
I’m starting to apply this to other things in my life, other things I was believing for. One of these is a pickup truck. Those who know me know how much I want one. I’m believing for one so hard it hurts sometimes. You can bet I was working the angles online trying to get a free one, and working them hard. The problem with trying to make God’s provision yourself is, well, you’re not God. After having this revelation spoken over me I’m just leaving this be.
hmmm. I guess this has become somewhat of a rambling blog. I really wanted to convey this revelation to others but don’t quite know how to. Perhaps the TL:DR message is this: what are you dreaming for, believing God for? Well, let it go. Stop spending all your energy chasing it down. Know that God will make it happen, your job is to be diligent and wise with the opportunities that come up. Simply “Leave it Be”.