"The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your
journey through this vast wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with
you, and you have not lacked anything." Deutoronomy 2:7
There is always something we think we need that we do not have. Always. We might not have it identified because what will bring it to the surface is not yet present, but there is always something.
Recently I have had to face the reality that a part of my story that I absolutely believed was dead and buried reared its ugly head. Being forced to face painful memories head on is never a pleasant experience, especially if you thought it was all over.
As a result of this situation, every insecurity has pushed its way forward to stare at me every time I see my reflection. And true to form, I have found myself desperate for the only thing that I have ever known to squash these feelings. And it's not God.
Now, after approximately three hours of sleep, I have to accept a few things about myself that were revealed through this verse.
1. There are things I think I need that I either do not have or do not immediately get to stop the storm that is raging in my heart.
2. If God really was my everything, there wouldn't really be more for me to want.
3. The object of my desire signifies a greater lie that I am believing and a trade I am subconsciously making.
Yesterday afternoon I read what I am about to share in Unseen by Sara Hagerty. And then a few hours later I had the chance to put her words of wisdom into solid practice, hard practice, but instead I chose pride and fear believing that what I was telling myself I needed was all that was going to speak be still over the waves crashing all around and pulling me under. But the truth is, God was not about to give into my idolatry because as Moses words state, I have not lacked anything and I certainly wasn't lacking yesterday. I was just simply refusing to state my truest and deepest need.
So when you read this quote, realize that the one to whom you may actually utter these words, is nothing more than the hands and feet God has given you to comfort you in your time of need. They are never meant to replace Him and should always be spoken to God first and foremost.
Excerpts from
p.96-97
"Up, please" - the incessant plea of the well-tethered child........Shame and rejection can shove that vulnerable "up, please" way down, as if to say, I never again want to feel that ache of needing and not receiving, so I won't ask the question that leaves me with my arms in the air and no one on the other side to pick me up. "Up, please" is a dangerous request for any of us who question love........"Truly I tell you," Jesus said, "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3 NIV).........But if we're honest, we don't really like it......To be honest, I don't really want to need God.
Instead, I want to crawl out of weak skin and take notes on a five-point lecture on how to grow my love for God, because wouldn't we all rather learn the hard lessons about love in a tidy sermon than in the rough-and-tumble of our lives? Yet He keeps inviting me to be bare with Him, to sit before Him and let down my heart and ask the questions and wait on His answers. Be vulnerable and stay vulnerable is quite the invitation in a world that praises and rewards the invulnerables. The dozen moments in a day that I resent because they remind me that I'm weak are the ones when God wants to hear my faltering voice: "Up, please."
...........Where are the places you're working hardest to be strong? What causes you to shut down on a given day? What is it that makes you send a panicked text to a friend or escape behind a screen or to rummage in the fridge for something to eat? Where are the places you are coaching yourself to be tough?"
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