Where the Ocean Meets the Sand

 

 One would think as we walk along a shore the path is clear. Not so. But why not? The way is clear, the sand it limits our path, our feet need a solid place on which to fall. After all, the water interferes with any venture we would take too far out. That may not be the case, just like what we perceive to be our path for sure in this life. My 14 year old just told me today "mom, it's my life". Oh boy did that send chills down my spine. Yes, it is his life but he is only 14, there is so much he does not know yet. So much mom wants to save him from. One thing I have learned, the path is usually NOT clear to us. I like to stay on the safe and certain path, sand is easy to follow along the shore, no diverting for me. Some people love adventure and danger, they are drawn to it, like my teenage son. YOLO "You Only Live Once" is his motto. Yuck, that makes me nauseous. But I respect it- I need to have fun too. But the safe path I would want to stay on and even plan for my very children, is not what the creator of life has in store for me. How can I be so sure? Every time I set my compass, something happens, everytime I call the shots, I realize by a quick change in life- I so do not have control of anything, really. It is amazing how we hang on really by a thread, we really do.....this life is but a breath and we do not sustain our lives. Sure we can take care of ourselves, eat right, do it all...raise our kids with the best of everything but we will still fall in some area. So what is the path, what can we plan....plan to give up control and not color in our lines. Ask, seek and pray to get to know ourselves and our strengths so that we can be the best we can be....but give up control to the author, the creator. He designed our life and when we give up control...that is when life get's fun and interesting. He has colored my life as amazing as it gets, and it still keeps getting better. The ashes they have turned to beauty, daily, before my eyes. The impossible has broken into life before my eyes. What I thought was dead, he redeemed. All by trusting Him with it all and holding onto nothing. He taught me the path is not the sure way along the waters....no, sometimes I cringe when He says the way is through the deepest of waters, over the jagged rocks and watch out for garbage in the path, but I will guide you. You see the path is rough and jagged and a little trying at times, but that is growth and progress because if I could do it myself that isn't living it would merely be surviving. If I know I depend on a greater good to guide me and lead me and enable me, it is then that I know I am safe, He has my best interest in mind. His glory is more sure and certain than anything I could plan or create. He offers a great deal, to use us to display His glory through us! That seems like a map I can follow, one I shouldn't deny ever. Oh, but the mind and will get in the way, common sense and logic. He will show us the way we need to know about if we can only be a bit interested in His ideas and hear Him out, He will answer. Begin today, ask Him what the path looks like and trust Him to enable you to do what He tells you. The ride will be 10X more exciting than your plans, 20X more fruitful and you can bet you can stand on the other side of whatever it is He did through you and say, no way would I have ever have imagined that I could do that! The creator can do all things through a willing vessel.

New Living Translation
"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. Isaiah 55:8

The clear path is effortless and it makes us believe we are our own master, what a scary thought that we are in control of it all. The way made through not seeing more than we need to in advance, in sometimes having to go backwards in order to go forward, in getting healed by forgiving another, learning a hard lesson where it is inside of us that needs the work, cleaning up our lives in general, scrubbing off something we know shouldn't be there...these things are not fun, glorious or easy-however, this is where we find the meaning and matter of life. This is where we have the power to change and impact something-through obedience.