One Thing at a Time

Lately, I've been a ping-pong ball - absolutely bouncing off the walls!  Let me qualify that.  I, myself, physically, am NOT bouncing off the walls whatsoever, seeing as I have been working through a horrendous three-week cold.  However, my heart is.  Not my physical heart, either - I'm not talking about SVT (although the metaphor seems to fit, oddly enough).  I'm talking about my soul.

I've blogged about dreams before, of a plan, a purpose.  Those dreams seem closer and more alive than ever.  There is so much I have been blessed with, so many ways to glorify God with what I have recieved.  My heart is constantly racing from idea to idea, asking What about this, God?  I could do that!  Did you allow that to happen to me so I could do this?  Do you want me to do that, God? While all of these dreams are noble, worthwhile pursuits, most of them are not things that God has called me to yet.  Have you ever dreamed of doing something you know you were cut out for - it seems your whole life has been preparing you for it?  That's how I feel, but God hasn't called me to that at this point.  Hmmm.  Yet.  That is the word that soothes my anxious heart.  Both God and I know that, obviously, I am not ready and this is not the time.  (Now I'm struggling not to use the word "yet" haha.)

"Where you go, I'll go, where you stay, I'll stay, when you move, I'll move, I will follow you."  I love this song so much!  It was the theme song last summer at Camp Berachah when I was a CIT (counselor-in-training).  If you have never been in a room surrounded by over a hundred kids worshipping the Lord with all their hearts... it's just wow!  I don't know what to say.  I've never experienced anything like it.  The Spirit is alive and moving.  That's for sure!  Anyway, I've been realizing, recently, how important the "stay" part - waiting - is.  It's so exhilirating and scary and awesome to be called by God to move and to answer the call, saying "Yes, God!  I'll move with You.  I will go where You go"!  In the midst of moving, though, God tells me to wait.  How frustrating is that?  "Yes!  I'll go!  I'm so excited!  You want to use me!  Wait.  Did I hear that right?  Wait?  Really?  Now?  Can't we just go?  I thought we were moving!"  In a way, staying is more difficult than moving.  God often calls us to do the opposite of what we think we want to do - it helps us grow.  When we want to stay and He asks us to move, it takes courage and we have to learn to trust Him.  When we want to move and He asks us to stay, we have to learn to wait on Him, to depend on Him and only Him.

I've been musing a lot about callings.  How does one distinguish between something he or she desires and something God has called that person to?  It took me awhile, but now that I read the question put this way, it seems embarassingly obvious.  When I think about something I want to do (that I haven't necessarily been called to do), all the reasons why I should begin with "I" or center around me.  Conversely, when God calls me to do something, the reasons why I should begin with and center around God and what He wants.  Sometimes when you're called by God, this crazy thing happens - you have an insatiable desire to do something you... don't really want to do.  Well, something you wouldn't normally want to do, anyway.  I couldn't pinpoint when it happens, but this lack of desire doesn't matter at all because you're on fire!  You hardly give a thought to things you would most likely never do if left to your own desires. 

Back to moving and waiting.  Waiting is hard!  I expected a run, like a cross country race, but God seems to have a series of sprints planned for me, instead.  Now I need to learn to wait.  Peacefully.  In the quiet.  Yet in waiting, there is also moving - pursuing God as He pursues me.  While I wait, I pray that God will mold my heart to be like His and that He will make His will become mine.  I need to surrender (aha!) my dreams and desires, my anxiety and restlesness.  Only then can I move with Him with the same purpose, for the same reasons.  Make my heart like yours, God. 

And about that ping-pong ball... I am confident that feeling will fade as I learn to rest while I wait.  I think part of it is my stubborness, an unwilligness to be patient.  "If I can't move this way, I'll dream up some other way to move!"  While God asks me to wait, I try to move ahead of him.  Big surprise: it doesn't work!  Sometimes, He courteously acknowledges a question with "not yet" or "someday", but, most of the time, He is silent, which works really well.  It makes me wake up and realize I can't move with Him unless He's moving.  Ummm duh.  Thank you, God, for being so patient and understanding when I am not! 

Wait.  Trust.  Quiet.  Pursue.  Hush.  Surrender.  Even writing this post, sorting it all out, I can feel my heart drawing closer to His.

"One thing at a time, love," He says.  I think I'm starting to understand.

One Word: Surrender

Every year, a community of people choose one word each to focus on for the entire year in lieu of making a list of resolutions.  Choosing one word makes it easier to stay focused.  The cool thing about choosing one word is the opportunity to explore it for a whole year, looking at it from different angles, acting on it, and watching it become manifested in your life.       

I'm a little late to the game.  This is my first official year of choosing one word to seek out and strive toward - but it almost didn't happen.  I'm bad at resolutions.  That doesn't really make sense (there seems to be a verb missing), but it's true.  It's not necessarily keeping them or remembering them that is hard - although those may be contributing factors - I'm horrible at coming up with things to resolve.  I make resolutions all year long and then, the one time of the year society dictates I am "supposed" to make resolutions, nothing comes to mind.  Either that or they are silly, insignificant things that I immediately toss.  Well then, this one word thing sounded pretty good to me, so I decided to try it after a few years of reading about other people's words and their experiences.  So, I asked God for a word - what He wanted me to strive after, how He wanted to mold me, what He wanted to show me about myself, about the world, about Himself.  And... wait.  ... wait.  ... wait... ... Okay.

 My word is(!): ________


Nothing.  Nothing came to mind.  Well, not exactly nothing.  I had an overwhelming amount of desires and goals for how I want to grow in Christ, but I couldn't describe half of that in four hundred pages.  One word?  You've gotta be kidding me.  "I'm waiting, God..." 

Let me tell you something about me and patience.  I thought I was patient.  I really, honestly did, months ago.  God has been showing me in the last few months that I am not patient.  Patience in no way describes me.  I have trouble waiting for many things, especially answers, most especially answers from God.  When I'm waiting for something, I become extremely restless.  I pace.  I tap my fingers.  I can't do anything until what I am waiting for appears.  When I'm waiting for an email, I refresh my email at least ten times every hour, fairly often, once a minute.  Yes, I do realize none of this helps but... !!!!!! That's all.       

I'm actually surprised now that God didn't give me the word patience.  It's probably because He knows I'm already thinking about it all the time, now.  I wonder why I didn't think of it myself...

After almost a week of waiting, I was... tired of waiting.  It really wasn't that important to me and I was tired of spending time thinking about it and praying about it, so I gave up.  Yup.  "Fine.  If you're not going to give me a word, I guess I just won't do this one word 365 thing.  I don't really care anyway." Bad attitude :P

Guess what?  I am doing one word 365 because, today, He gave me a word.  "Why did You have to take so long? Would it really have been so bad to give me a word right when I asked for it?" "Weird," I thought, wondering why it came so randomly after I stopped caring.  "Cool".  Maybe He thought I needed to defy cultural standards.  However, it is definitely about patience.  "Right now" is exactly the problem.  I need to be willing to wait however long it takes with peace that God knows what I need and will give it to me in his perfect timing.

So.  Here we go again.

My word for 2012 is surrender.

This year, I want to:

Surrender my life
Surrender my desires
Surrender my hopes
Surrender my time
Surrender school
Surrender my relationships
Surrender my doubts
Surrender my fears
Surrender each moment
Surrender everything that centers around "I" or includes "right now"
Surrender to a love I can hardly begin to imagine
Surrender to a God I want to know more and more
Surrender to His perfect plan for my life, leaving all other things behind

What I really like about One Word 365 is I don't have to know exactly what this word will mean for my life this year, exactly how I want to change.  God can show me new things through this word all year - how He wants me to change, what He wants me to learn.  It's amazing how many aspects one word can have.  Reading other people's posts about the word they chose, I was often surprised by what that word meant to them because I was thinking about it in a completely different way. 


If you could choose one word to focus on this year,
what would it be?


Happy (late) New Year!  I'm excited to see what God has planned for my life and each of yours, and what He wants to show me about surrendering this year!