Road Trip

Have you ever felt like you're sitting in a season of your life where all you do is wrestle with the Lord? In Genesis it talks about how Jacob wrestled with the Lord and He finally touched his hip, and I can't help but say that I feel like that's a place where I'm sitting now. There are so many things the Lord and I are wrestling through and I'm just waiting. Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time in the car driving back and forth to Longview with a lot of time in between meetings...meaning lots of windshield time and time with the Lord. I love that time but when I finally got home I felt refreshed and frustrated all at the same time. Why is that?

The past eight months I've been going to CR (Celebrate Recovery) at Watermark and I've been going through the process of creating a spiritual inventory. Basically I'm looking at all of the people/events in my life that have had some sort of an impact on who I am today...both good and bad. I must confess that as I've gone through this process I've spent quite a bit more time focusing on the bad things, thereby believing the lie that God doesn't want good things for me. Not good and so not true! In James it talks about how the Lord is the giver of every good and perfect gift, and how He wants good things for us. Why in the world is this so hard for me to believe? This is where the windshield time with the Lord began for me yesterday and as I was driving "Blessed Be Your Name" came on the radio. Of course this is a song that I've been singing at church and at Breakaway for years now, and is so familiar to me that unfortunately I've become numb to the words and what they're talking about. As I was driving, two of lines stuck out to me in a very big way.

Blessed Be Your Name on the road's marked with suffering,

though there's pain in the offering

Blessed Be Your Name.

When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Umm, guilty! In that moment, as I was singing along to the radio, I realized that that's not very true for this season of my life. I've been so guilty of saying "Lord, why did you make me go through that?" instead of saying "Lord, look at what You did through that!" It's unbelievable how quickly I can forget what the Lord has done in my life and forget all the good things, but spend so much time focusing on the parts I don't like and don't understand.

Lord, thank you that You are sovereign and that You have a purpose for me!