In the past few months God has been challenging me in the areas of compromise and trust. I’ve had to make some tough choices regarding my business and I’ve watched my husband do the same for his business. Personally I have had to really pray and wrestle with some new ideas I was tossing around and some new opportunities that came up. The good in all this was that I was able to see God’s plan very clearly so in the end I knew what I had to do.
However I got thinking about the times when perhaps my heart was not right with God and I was not in a place where I was listening to Him and seeking His will. How different the outcome would be. It doesn’t make these choices easy, there is definitely a level of trust I have in God and allowing Him to be the King in me.
Jesus displayed a great deal amount of trust in God just before he died on the cross. Jesus was forsaken by God in those dark hours on the cross for my sins so I can know for sure today that I will never be forsaken by God. I have been forgiven. When in comes to my priorities and reprioritizing things in my life, I have to trust God with that too. It’s funny to me that we can trust God with our eternal life but not with our life here on earth. It can’t be about stature like it was for Cepheus and Pilot who had a hidden agenda in allowing Jesus to be crucified. It can’t be about my agenda at all. It’s got to be about trusting God and re-prioritizing. I noticed for me in my life this has to happen every day and it starts with guarding my heart for God, not from God.
Remember that big stone that was placed in front of the tomb because they were trying to keep the people from Jesus? In the end God moved it just like He can move in us even when we’re trying to guard our hearts from Him. Maybe there are just some of the chambers of your heart that are not open to God. That’s definitely me. I need to trust God more in order to open up the all chambers that have been closed off towards Him. Everyone has those areas in our lives that we’re just like, ‘no way, don’t go there.’ I have to really work in those areas to trust God with my unbelief. Allow Him to move that stone and be the King of your whole heart. We cannot humanize God. He is greater and gracious. We’re not in control. Personally I need to confess my selfish ambitions and question if I am coveting someone else’s agenda and not my own. That’s when compromising can become an issue.
14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. James 3:14-16
One of the reasons I personally lack trust in God is because of some past heart breaking seasons in my life. But lately I have been learning to look back on those seasons and see how God grew me closer to Him. Those seasons of my life were never meant to define me. God’s healing power is bigger than any hurt. Take Jesus himself for example, he didn’t exactly have an ideal life. He was rejected, mocked, abused, crucified and buried. But this did not define him. He became the Resurrection, the Life and Hope for the world. My heart breaks are not my destiny and your heart breaks are not yours either. We can trust God and we need to obey God.
David is another example. If anyone’s past should have defined their future it should have been David. David didn’t just wake up one day and deliver lunch and kill a giant. He had a loyalty, an awareness, a deeply rooted respect and relationship with God. This ultimately made it easy for David to trust God when fighting Goliath. He spend years in the field watching over his father’s sheep before God called Him to fight Goliath. It was David’s past experiences and relationship with God that allowed him to step out of the little box his family had put him in. David was the smallest, the youngest, and a harpist. Just a little shepherd boy with the gift of music. But that didn’t define him at all. He was passionate for justice, and he was passionate about his responsibilities. It challenges me to be more deeply rooted so I may have a bigger ability to trust and obey with passion and courage. This sort of thing doesn’t just come like a take-out dinner. Sometimes I expect an instant meal of courage in a situation where I must be deeply rooted in trust first. I can’t trust without obeying first. I can’t let limits that other’s place around me or past seasons of my life define me or become my standard of living. I must reprioritize, repent, and rest today and every day. I encourage us all to take it one step further and guard our hearts for God not from Him. Don’t compromise.
in the clay,
Chantal Dube