[In]definite

A short snapshot into me:
I am a detail-oriented person. I thrive on learning information and knowing different things. I love to plan and set things in action. I like to always be doing something, and I tend to do better when I have more rather than fewer things to do. I like seeing the big picture and envisioning it if I can then respond by figuring out how to make it a reality or what is practical in it. I am not one to like things up in the air for long. I love questions if I can also seek out the answer.

This is not a conclusive list to who I am, but it does show a large side of my character and how I operate in life…and these are things I would often include when people would ask me to describe myself.

Just like I say in the list above, I love to know different things, and I love to have answers. This is true in how I treat myself as well. Many people have pointed out to me how well I seem to know myself and how self-aware I am. I like to think that as I get older, I figure myself out more and more, as if it were a vast, yet definite answer that I will one day reach.

Yet, in myself, and in my circumstances, God is leading quite a path into the indefinite that I haven’t experienced in this measure before. A time of no concrete circumstances. Of no concrete characteristics. No, instead, they are ambiguous, being remolded and reshifted into whatever He desires them and me to be. Could it be that what eventually happens are things that I may know now? In part, I think that could be very true. But the rest—it’s left unknown to me for what God deems now to be the better good in the meantime.

John and I left SLO a month ago to spend time in Colorado before heading to New York City, where we believe God is leading us. We’ve already been here a bit longer than we had hoped or planned for. Yet, more and more, we realize that God is very purposeful in where He has us in the meantime.

This season is so purposeful but it is also sometimes difficult. It is a simple one. It shines a purer and brighter light on who I really am and causes me to see and evaluate that, and more than ever, surrender to the Lord. A few days ago, I was also at this point where I felt like everything has so many dimensions that the answer is so complicated. I was trying to seek out the answers I want rather than the answer that has been given. But, the reality I am finding is that the more complicated life gets, the simpler the answer to everything becomes. It is that everything comes from, goes to, and goes through the Lord. How Jesus chooses to manifest the results may be complicated and dynamic to us, but it's not up to us, and we need not concern ourselves with that.

It begs the need for quietness of spirit. It begs the discipline of rest and simplicity in our hearts and demeanor. And it comes from trust…do we trust the Lord? Can we wait upon Him? Can we rest in Him?

In a quiet spirit, there our hearts are inclined to listen and hear from the ever gracious Holy Spirit. In a quiet spirit, there is both a surrender of our desires for the present situation, and an acceptance of what the Lord has brought in them instead of what we envisioned. From that, there can be a response of willingness and joyfulness in being where He has placed us.

Here.

Right now.

To be soft for the shaping.

Willing for the changing.

Patient in the waiting.

Steadfast in the hoping.

Passionately living by faith.

He has brought us through before, and He will continue to in the present and future.

He is good to remind us of this…God asked me the question of where my heart is at with waiting on hearing and forsaking my hearing aids about a week or so ago. I was able to respond without a hesitation that I wouldn't trade or change it for anything…

Even though it’s ambiguous and at times more than ever I am walking by faith and not by sight…He has done far more than I ever could have imagined with the lack. He has shown Himself to me over and over again in that process. Still I wait.

It’s much like now. John and I know Who we trust. Yes, it’s indefinite and ambiguous. Yes, it’s hard sometimes. Yes, there is a lack of knowledge and answers we would love to have. But that’s not what God has ordained for this season. Through Him, the answer is simple.

And we will wait. God will shape us indefinitely…but in Him, we are definitely known.