There's a song in my head lately. It's called Grace, and the second verse goes like this:
And the chinook winds prophecy a coming of change,And here we are in Austin. It's hard to believe that another month has come and gone. It seems like we left Missoula just yesterday, and yet also like Missoula was a lifetime ago.
and the ice on my soul is just groaning in rage at the news:
the shackles are loosed, and the river runs free...
I feel like God is really working within my heart and mind. Slowly but surely He is answering a long-time prayer of mine. That is, "Lord, change my heart to want the things that you want, are doing, and help me not to cling to the 'old stuff.'"
I desperately want the house to sell; more because I want the last tie to Missoula cut, so that we can go forward into what God is doing here, without that dragging us backwards. I also want God's call on our hearts to be vindicated and his desire for "the kingdom" to go forward unhindered. I know there are actually people who have prayed that our house would not sell, somehow thinking that if it doesn't sell, that proves God is not in what we are doing.
Unfortunately that kind of thinking shrinks God into a box and says that what we do can thwart His purposes.
If there is one thing I have learned over the last 24 years is that God is most definitely bigger than Christian or anything he sets his mind to do. God has only blessed the things He wants and definitely nixed the things He has not wanted. I know for a fact that we looked at many things and God made only one choice available to us. We chose that one thing and He is definitely working in and through it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional, has not been listening for the last ten years, and not looking at the facts in any logical fashion.
So God is assuring me each day more and more that we are exactly where He wants us and that He is moving us into the next task He has for us.
And what is the next task?
Well, there are several scenarios, none of which include returning to Missoula. Surprisingly enough, I am more and more okay with that, with each day that passes. Some days are harder than others, but isn't that true of all of us who are sojourners on this earth?
Jeremiah 29:7 keeps echoing in my mind: "But seek the shalom of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its shalom, you will find your shalom."
And then again in vs 11-14: "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for shalom and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope..."
Those words were re-assuring to Daniel and are becoming more and more sweet to me.
For it's grace, grace, irresistible grace,
the kind that calls Lazarus up from the grave,
pouring down from the heavens above, raining on me.
Yes its grace, grace, irresistible grace,
the kind that never shall fail to save,
on account of the price that God himself paid -
it's grace, irresistible grace.
