Choosing Sides

Good morning! Happy Saturday! This morning I want to share something a little different. This isn't something I have figured out and now want to teach you. This is something God is working on in me right now. In fact, it is something He has been showing me more and more lately, and this morning I felt like maybe I wasn't supposed to keep it to myself.

Since my mom died, I have done a lot of second-guessing myself. I lost my mom, which is a loss I don't think I will ever be able to adequately put into words, but I also lost one of my greatest sounding boards. Mom was someone I could take my thoughts, ideas, problems, frustrations, and decisions to. She knew me well enough to know when I needed encouragement, but she also knew me well enough to tell me when I needed to get over something! More importantly, she had wisdom—and a lot of that wisdom was rooted in her faith.

Without her here, I have felt a little lost at times. But recently, God has been showing me something about the way I have been handling that. Somewhere along the way, I started falling into a trap. Instead of asking God what I should do and then following where He led, sometimes I was making my decision first and then going to God looking for His approval.

There's a big difference between “God, what do You want me to do?” and “God, here's what I've decided to do. Please show me that I'm right.”

Ouch.

I can see places in my life where I truly believe God has led me. The classes I am taking are one of those things. I felt led toward them before I completely understood why, and the further I go, the more I see pieces falling into place. I don't know exactly what God is going to do with all of it yet, but I can see enough to know I need to keep following.

But if I am being truthful, I can also see some things that I have made important simply because I decided they were important. Instead of asking God what He wanted me to do with them, I have found myself wanting God to “side with me.”

And sometimes His answer seems incredibly familiar:

“Let it go, Mindy. Move on.”

I can almost hear my mom saying those exact words.

That realization took me to a fascinating passage in Joshua.  Joshua 5:13-14, As Joshua was preparing for the battle of Jericho, he encountered a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword. Joshua asked him a question that sounds a lot like one we still ask God today:

“Are you for us or for our enemies?”

In other words, Whose side are you on?

The answer from the commander of the Lord's army was simply:

“Neither.”

Think about that for a minute. Joshua was leading God's people! Surely God was on his side, right? But Joshua was asking the wrong question. The question wasn't whether God was on Joshua's side. The question was whether Joshua was on God's side.

I wonder how often we do the same thing.

We have a conflict with someone, and we ask God to show them that we're right. We have something we desperately want to happen, and we start looking for “signs” that God is going to make it happen. We make a decision and then pray for God to bless it. We ask people for advice until someone finally gives us the answer we wanted to hear. Sometimes we can even search Scripture looking for something that supports the decision we've already made.

But that's not really seeking God's will. That's asking God to agree with ours.

Proverbs 3:5–6 tells us, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

I've read those verses countless times, but look at that word: submit.

Submission means I don't come to God with my mind already made up. It means I am willing to hear an answer I don't particularly like. It means I can bring God exactly what I want, while still being willing to lay it down if what He wants is different.

Jesus gave us the perfect example of that in the Garden of Gethsemane. He didn't pretend He didn't have a preference. In Luke 22:42, He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

There is something important in that for me. God doesn't require us to pretend we don't care about the outcome. We can tell Him exactly what we want. God, I want this opportunity. God, I want this relationship restored. God, I want this situation to change. God, I want them to understand my side. God, I want this door to open.

But then comes the hard part:

“Yet not my will, but Yours be done.”

And today is the day that I am laying down something I have carried for months. 

Maybe spiritual maturity isn't reaching a point where we don't have strong opinions, dreams, plans, or desires. Maybe it is learning to hold those things with open hands.

And sometimes the answer may simply be, “Let it go. Move on.”

There are things that deserve our fight, our attention, our prayers, and our perseverance. But there are also things we keep carrying long after God has told us to put them down. Sometimes we're so busy asking Him to fix the situation, change the person, prove the point, or give us the outcome we want that we aren't listening when He says, “This isn't where I want your energy anymore. I have something else for you.”  This is hard for me, because it truly isn't the answer I wanted, but today, this morning, I realized it is the answer He wants from me. 

James 1:5 tells us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

I'm learning that asking God for wisdom means more than asking Him to help me make my plans work. It means going to Him before I've decided what the answer should be. It means reading His Word not looking for confirmation, but looking for direction. It means listening to godly counsel even when it isn't what I wanted to hear. And it means being willing to accept that sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it is no, sometimes it is wait—and sometimes it is simply, “Mindy, let it go.”

Maybe you have something like that in your life right now, too. Something you've prayed about over and over, but if you're completely truthful, you aren't really asking God what He wants anymore. You're asking Him to make what you want happen.

So this week, I'm challenging myself to change the question.

Instead of, “God, are You on my side?”

I want to ask, “God, am I on Yours?”

Instead of, “God, bless what I've decided,” I want to pray, “God, show me what You want me to do, and give me the courage to do it—even when Your answer isn't the one I wanted.”

And maybe most importantly:

“God, if I'm holding onto something You have already told me to let go of, help me open my hands.”

I miss my mom's wisdom every single day. I miss being able to pick up the phone, tell her what I'm thinking, and hear what she has to say. But maybe one of the things God is teaching me in this season is to go first to the source of the godly wisdom I valued so much in her.

Before I decide.

Before I react.

Before I dig in my heels.

Before I start looking for someone to agree with me.

Ask God. Listen. Then follow.

Because the goal was never to get God on my side.

The goal has always been to make sure I am on His.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Andrew and I are enjoying our last day in San Antonio with a light schedule as we are leaving for the airport at 4:30 in the morning. As you can tell, this week has been a time of deep soul searching for me, and even though I have been working, it has given me the change in scenery to distance myself from some things that I can now look at from God's view. So, even though I feel like I have taken off a huge load I have been carrying, I am also feeling a bit exposed and naked from what that used to cover. I definitely know He's still working on me.