He wants ALL of me

I really had no concept of suffering. 

I spent the majority of the first decades of my life believing that suffering meant I was sinning. That I was doing something wrong. I wasn't praying right. I wasn't trusting right. I wasn't following the formula. 

The truth is: THERE IS NO FORMULA except that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. 

That's it. 

But suffering? 

We should expect it. 

I've been thoroughly enjoying studying with an incredible group of women online. This is my third year with BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). This year, we are studying "Exile and Return" and jumping around to many different periods of exile throughout the Old Testament. 

This week it was Nehemiah. 

I had no idea how much I could get from a book of the Bible I'd really never given a second thought too. 

A quick summary: Nehemiah, the cup-bearer to the King, approaches his throne asking if he can go and help the Israelites rebuild the wall. Despite opposition, Nehemiah fasts, prays, and ultimately puts aside his fear and trusts the Lord. 

Oh to put aside my fear!

We all have fear in our life. What is your's? I have a few different general themes, but it has been in the last few months that I have fleshed out the biggest lie I have spent decades believing: 

I must be strong. I must PREVENT bad things from happening. Because if a bad thing happens, I will be on my own to figure out what to do. 

Lies. 

All lies. 

But a lie that I absolutely have built my life around. 

Don't let anyone, ever, not like you. Never be unwanted! Be kind. Never be completely honest. Tell people what they want to hear because heaven-forbid someone doesn't like you. How could you possibly handle that, Wendi? Someone not liking you is ... DEATH! So prevent it. Avoid it. Run from it. 

More lies!!

What if instead I believed: I can handle it?

I did a double-session of EMDR this last week. The day after, I had that moment of clarity I have longed for as my brain attempts to make new meanings and create new pathways. My counselor Kim has been telling me this for two years, but suddenly, I sort of believed it: 

I CAN DO HARD THINGS!

God's purposes are greater than the work he gives us to do! He may give us a task solely to face the obstacles that come along with it. His true purpose is to transform us -- but that can be costly. What area of costly faith are you facing right now? What related fears might you need to bring before God? Are you willing to ask him to align your heart? 

Carrying our cross puts to death our personal desires, wishes, conveniences, and wants in favor of God's will. I want people to like me. I never want to hurt or upset anyone. But in the end, am I more worried about what someone else thinks of me? Or am I more worried about what God thinks of me. 

In order for me to get to this point, I had to face my ultimate fear: I had to face someone deciding they were mad at me. That person was going to be upset at me and not tell me why. They weren't going to allow me to repair. And I was going to have to just sit in that. It doesn't matter who the person was. God had to have someone decide to be angry in order for me to practice the ultimate form of surrender.

Yes, Jesus. It is time. I am forty-eight years old. It is time for me to FINALLY say, "Jesus, YOU are the most important thing in my life. ONLY YOU."

Oh, he's been asking me to do this my whole life, and I would think, "I mostly got it." I cannot tell you how many times I would quietly feel God telling me not to worry what someone thought. Or I would have a friend say, "Wendi, what they think shouldn't bother you this much?" And I would nod and sort of agree, but then I would go into "fix-it-mode." Fix-it, Wendi! No way you can sit in this. You can't handle that. FIX!

But I didn't. Not truly. Not ever. In the end, my fear of man was ALWAYS stronger than my devotion to the Lord.

What about you? It may not be people-pleasing. What is the thing in your life that sits in front of Jesus? I ask you. I beg of you. See my story. Don't require the Lord to bring you to a place of ultimate low before you willingly say, "I put you FIRST!" 

God will actually move the heart of others to complete his purpose for us. Woah. This means that he may actually harden someone's heart to be upset at me in order to complete his purpose. This means that he may have someone fire you to make sure your job isn't your security. He may cause the loss in your life to bring about the ultimate surrender. 

I never used to believe this. I believed that good things were from God and bad things were from Satan. However, the Bible doesn't say this at all. While we know Satan is real, and he absolutely brings adversity against us, we also know that God will discipline us. 

Hebrews 12:10–11: “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

James 1:2–4: “Consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."

Romans 5:3–4: “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” 

Deuteronomy 8:2: “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness… to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart.”

Peter 1:6-7: “Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith… may result in praise, glory and honor.”

Honestly, just writing those scriptures out makes me have a bit of a stomachache. I don't want this to be true. And I want so badly to go back in time and learn this before I had to face the last two years of my life. Before God had to wake me up to the lie I had built my entire life around. 

Wendi believed she could power her way through anything. She could perseverate long enough to solve any situation. She could help people eliminate pain. She could fix hard situations. She didn't want to sit in pain with people. She wanted to make their pain GO AWAY because she had no idea what to do with pain. It didn't fit into her formula. Pain was BAD. 

Oh, but what if PAIN was actually good? What if it grew you?

God doesn't act on our time. Serving and following Jesus is costly because of our desires which will ultimately conflict with His will. Obstacles are opportunities for transformation! Instead of falling into despair, can you fall into prayer instead?!

HE ALLOWS DIFFICULTIES IN OUR LIFE!

Oh, how I wish this wasn't true because then I could just rebuke Satan and pray away the difficulty. Instead, I now see that sometimes, the difficulty is from the Lord. He is saying, "I need you to see me. I need you to put me first. I need you to change the direction of your life because I need you."

I have no doubt that the Lord is calling me to a new place. A different place. A place where He is my #1. I wish so badly that I could have discovered this two decades ago. Why do I have to be nearing 50? Why couldn't I have seen this at 30? 

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I simply was not ready. Maybe I pushed Him away. 

But He has my attention now because I am simply unable to function without leaning on Him. This depression/anxiety/collapse is too big for me. I have not been able to just power through. (Trust me! I have tried!)

My counselor keeps saying to me: You have to stop trying to make meaning out of every dip and low spot. You just have to ride the waves. 

But I didn't know how to do that because for me, everything was a problem to be solved. If I can think enough, I can solve the problem. I can figure it out. I, Wendi, can get out of this situation.

Just like Nehemiah went with fear before the King ... What area of costly faith are you facing right now? What related fears might you need to bring before God? What do you need to surrender to Him? 

For Wendi there are many areas, but the biggest one is my fear of man. 

Lord Jesus, I surrender. I absolutely give up. I have tried it my way. I have tried to live for you while continuing to put what other people think and feel first. I can talk my way out of it. I can get them to like me. I can convince them that I am a good person. I can apologize profusely. I can beg. I can grovel. Anything to not sit in discomfort. 

Or I can say: not my will Lord Jesus, but your will be done. 

If that means someone decides to shut me out of their life forever? So be it. Because in the end, JESUS is my audience of 1. Outside of my Heavenly Father and my husband and children, anyone else must take a back seat to HIM! And, even of course, those humans are behind God in priority in my life. They must be!

God's activity in our life inspires believers to follow Him despite the cost. When opposition to God's will arises, it gives us opportunity to trust in the Lord. 

Dear Jesus, please help me to fully trust you!

May I be like the sheep in our pastures -- trusting the Lord to give them their next food. Not worried about anything except the thing right in front of them. Dear Jesus, allow me to be like a sheep. Allow me to reside and trust you FULLY.