Hiddenness

It's so easy to get preconceived ideas--especially when it comes to thinking I know how God is going to work in my life. For the last year, I've sensed that change was coming down the pike. I even blogged about it. (see my post entitled "Waiting"). I knew it was the birth of something new, and I was excited to see it's arrival.

Change has come, but not exactly in the form I expected. There's change on EVERY side of my life. With this change there has had to come a releasing of the old. Funny, in my visions of this new birth, I never factored in having to give up too much. I just figured I'd add this new thing into everything else! But that's not even how real births happen. With every birth, there is a letting go. The mother's body surrenders to the needs of the growing baby; parents give up their right to sleep as late as they want. Life is now centered around growing and providing for a new little life.

So it is with the changes happening with me. Although there is much change AROUND me, I'm finding that the main changes God wants me to focus on are the changes He wants to do WITHIN me. There's a radical level of surrender God is asking that reveals the hidden places of selfishness I have inside of me. Places where I have propped myself up by titles, or accomplishments etc. Instead of this, I've been thrust into a place of seeming hiddenness where I feel I'm regularly a failure.

Strangely, however, the more I am in this place, the more liberating it feels. I have a deeper realization that my value to God remains regardless of my level of performance. I am learning that some of God's best work is done in secret. So I remain in this transitional state and trust that whatever God is up to is good. My job is simply to align myself with Him and let go of those preconceived ideas. . .