The Teaching Season
I’m going to get real honest real quick this morning. I am in one of those teaching seasons in my faith. This isn’t a stretching season, although I am being stretched for sure. This is definitely more of a teaching season. God is trying to get me to take the next step, pushing me out of the nest if you will. The problem is I don’t trust my wings just yet.
I was thinking about this season I am in while I was out of town this weekend, and I began to wonder, where did my confidence go? How did I lose my confidence in Christ? When I first became a believer, I was confident and bold in my faith. Then one day down the road I realized that somewhere along the way my confidence had waned and weakened. How did that happen? Why did that happen? Perhaps most importantly, can I ever get it back?
I was reminded of one of the things that God has been teaching me in this season during Pastor Doug’s sermon this week. The past is and always will be just that…the past. The past should not dictate the present. The past is a great place to visit from time to time, but I will never survive if I try to live there. I am the kind of person that tends to drift back to the past when things get hard in the present. I start playing the “if only” game and get stuck thinking back through all of the decisions I have made that got me to this hard thing that I am struggling to deal with today.
I am inclined to say here that nothing good can come from that, but that is not true. Looking back on the decisions that led me to this hard place can be helpful in preventing myself from ending up in a similar place down the road. There are lessons to be learned from the decisions I make each and every day. The problem comes in when I begin to dwell on and obsess over the decisions I made that were less than ideal. Nothing good comes from this for sure. When this happens, I begin to beat myself up over how I could be so stupid, completely forgetting that hindsight is 20/20. These lies about myself begin to try and work their way into my identity, and if I am not careful, I can end up tearing up a foundation that took Christ years to build in me.
The biggest thing I feel like God is teaching me in this season, and the hardest thing for me to learn, is to stop waiting around for detailed instructions from Him. God is encouraging me to keep moving forward and to trust that He is going to meet me there. He wants me to make my own decisions knowing that He is and will always be right there with me. I have gotten so comfortable praying and waiting for an answer before I make a move. God has taught me how to make wise decisions. He has helped me identify the wise people He has placed in my life for me to seek counsel from. I know what to do…I am just terrified to do it without being told to.
It’s like transitioning from high school to college to the real world. My parents taught me what I needed to know to leave home. After I left, I knew that I could call them anytime if I had questions, and they would be there to help. I knew they would meet me in my confusion and walk me through it. College taught me what I needed to know for my chosen profession. I couldn’t stay in college forever. At some point, I had to step out on my own, confidently drawing on the lessons I learned in college to make wise choices. Is it scary? Of course, it is. Am I capable? That’s the part I am struggling with currently.
The thing is I have learned to hear God’s voice. I have learned to step out in obedience, even when it doesn’t make sense and I am scared to death. What I haven’t learned is to trust in the wisdom I have learned in my faith journey. I have become dependent on waiting for clear, detailed directions from God about what step to take next. This has weakened my trust in Him. I know that sounds crazy, but it is true.
Jesus tells me in Matthew chapter 28 that He is with me always. When did I stop trusting that? Like I said before, I have learned what obedience looks like and how to be obedient when God says to move. What I haven’t learned is how to move even when God does not give me clear, detailed instructions about where and how to move. I need to learn to use the wisdom He has given me to keep moving forward and to trust that He is going to be there when I arrive. Like Pastor Doug said, I need to learn to do my part, and then trust Him with the rest. I need to find that confidence I once had in Christ and strengthen it.
This is the part where I should be giving you tips on how to find that confidence again in your own life. I really wish I could, but the truth is that I am in the beginning stages of that journey. All I can tell you is how I plan to start. I plan to start by prioritizing Bible reading again. I have let this slide way too far down on my list of priorities. Sure, I have read lots of books about faith and God and how scripture speaks to other people, but I haven’t been reading the most important book on my shelf much at all lately. It’s time for that to change. It’s time for me to stop with all of the devotionals and start allowing God to write His own devotional through my time in His word.
This is step one, and to be honest, I haven’t thought much past this step. If you have experienced something similar in your life, I would love to hear from you. I would love to know how you got your confidence back. I would love to hear the story of how you used the wisdom God gave you to keep moving forward trusting that He was going to meet you there rather than waiting for clear, detailed instructions about every single next step. Please share them with me if you feel comfortable. It would be such an encouragement.