Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. — Phil 4:13, The Message

Those of us who follow Jesus, who listen intently for His voice and revel in His  presence, whatever path we currently find ourselves on is the path He has called us to for this time.

I’ve experienced God’s pull on my spirit to take another path, so I know from experience He will always make it known to me when its time to switch tracks. Its the trudging down the same rocky and uncertain path that I struggle with. But I’m learning to accept the truth of "trudging"; the path I’m on is the one I’m called to. Paul says in Eph 4, "In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up
here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and
walk–better yet, run!-on the road God called you to travel. I don’t
want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone
strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And
mark that you do this with humility and discipline–not in fits and
starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of
love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences."

So often I’ve sat on my hands, or gone down paths that ultimately go nowhere and had to backtrack. I admit, I’m a fits-and-starts kinda girl. Yet, God was faithful even through all that to teach me and grow me, transform me, to look a little more like the woman He created me to be.

There are things I’m learning about myself, patterns of thought and behavior that I developed in childhood, as an instinct of survival, that now hold me back from becoming all I can be. So many times I want to hide from what I see. So many times I do choose to hide, to fill my head with noise so I can’t hear the soul-cries.

I have so much work to do. So much. I can see the person I want to become, but there is so much space to cross between me and that woman. I don’t want to waste any more time, yet I fight a lethargy stronger than I’ve ever known. I’m more tired, drained and unmotivated than I have ever been in my life.

Growing up in Christ has often in my mind been something that, by nature, involved a lot of condemnation, angst and… drama. I was convinced if I didn’t feel the sting of rebuke from God or other believers than I wasn’t really letting God into my dark spaces, my hiding places. What I’ve experienced of God in the last few years, however, has completely destroyed and reconstructed my view of who God is; of how He deals with us. The God I’ve experienced has been so gentle and soft, so tender and yet so strong in a protective, sheltering way. Even correction comes with such grace, tenderness and celebration of who I am, of who I am meant to be. I’ve never experience correction this way before. Never.

Yet I still wait for the hammer of condemnation and the sting of rebuke to fall upon me. I spend so many nights running from Him in fear.

I want to stop running. I want to stop fearing what will never come. I just don’t believe anymore that that’s who God is.

You would think that wanting would be enough. After all, I am the one in control of myself, am I not? But we humans are so much more complicated than that. And so is life. Wanting to isn’t enough when dealing with life long habits and fears birthed and fed in childhood, and catered to in adulthood.

So here I stand once again, realizing that I cannot do what I want to without help.

God help me.  God help me Become.