Navigating; to move on, over, or through
Proverbs 16:9 , Psalm 32:8, Psalm 119:105, Romans 8:26-32
to
position on a course
to
pass over
to walk or find one's way in or across
Navigating; isn’t
that what we are doing? Trying to move on, or over, or through something?
Don't we want to be positioned on a course? Some of us want and need just enough light
to walk and find a way in or across what we are facing. Our lives are
filled with decisions that have to be made and steps that have to be taken.
It can be overwhelming at times. There have been times that I have been
paralyzed, thinking if I make the wrong decision that somehow I will be out of
God's will and taken off course. This comes from a faulty perspective
that was ingrained in me from the time I was a little girl. The thought
that God's will is like a tight rope and I must make every step with perfect
precision or the results will be disastrous. Somehow thinking that once off the
tight rope there is no recovery. From where I stand now on this journey,
I clearly see that kind of thinking doesn't mirror at all the character of the
One who I am following.
It's more like
white water rafting! There is a guide in the boat and you are in the boat
WITH him. He guides and directs you as you go down this river called
life. Sometimes you can't hear him because the water has captured your focus and
you choose to go right when it might have been better to go left. When
you get to the left, you realize it, you turn to your guide, and he with the
perfect precision that only he has, directs and guides you so you can navigate
the water you find yourself in. The point is, you are still in the boat
with the Guide and you have never left the river! Harder paddling? Sometimes.
Messy waters? Often. Could have been easier another way?
Possibly. Mistake? I'm not convinced.
We get so hung up
on making a mistake mostly because we don't want other people to think we have
made a mistake. Been there. And, Jim and I have had people think that we must have fallen
down and hit our heads on a few occasions, when we knew we were following.
In navigating and participating with your Guide, you have to able to live
with people not getting or understanding your course. The only way you do that
is by seeking to keep your ears open to the Guide. Our decisions do set
trajectory in our lives and should be made with as much light and wisdom as can
be granted us. But, we won't always make the right decisions. We
are going to have water in our ears sometimes and go right when we should have gone
left. The One we follow is all about speaking to stormy waters and making
them calm, making beauty out of ashes, and making things for our good and
ultimately His glory. Let that soak in and breathe deep.....
All of it then is
material in His hand. In my seeking to have my perspective swallowed up
in His, I have been reading about and drinking from men and women's lives that
participated with Him and the navigation of their lives. The constant
awareness of Him the guide is evident in every life. And, the thought
that God is using it all and can use anything to accomplish His purpose is what
is ingrained in them. These things kept them moving instead of paralyzed by the rapids that raged around them. What I am convinced of is that all is not lost by a misguided turn and He is still
in control.
One of those lives
from the 1700's wrote this,
"You seek
perfection and it lies in everything that happens to you- your suffering, your
actions, your impulses are the mysteries under which God reveals Himself to
you."
I'm asking God to
navigate me through this portion of the river, to position me on the course to
run my own race, and to show me how to find my way into more of Him and less
of me in the coming year. Can you open palm the entire course to Him? The
waters you have already come through and those that are still up ahead?
Still learning to
abide,
Kim
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