Okay, I'm posting on a day that is not one of my two regular days of the month. But then this has been one of those irregular summers, and I'm finding myself wondering what might happen next--either surprisingly good or uncommonly difficult.

While I was updating one of my personal blogs, I ran across an old post that still rings true for me in some ways--especially the part about God's shape of things being far better than I imagine. So here it is--an old post that has current relevance for me:

I’m wondering . . . What causes you to want to scream and kick a wall? What about your relationship with God do you love or do you question? What in life throws you or strengthens you?

I’ll start.

I have a passion to do something (what it is isn’t so important for this post), and I really think that I could possibly do it well . . . eventually. (Wow, look how those adverbs show my uncertainty!) With encouragement from a couple friends, I’ve even gone after this passion a few times, but when I do I get a face plant in a brick wall. Okay, not literally—that would hurt.

Things just don’t work out one way or another. But then I think, isn’t this something good that God would want to happen? That’s the kind of thing that throws me. It can really discourage me, in fact. Questions pour through my mind. Even the question, “What’s wrong with me?” I get stuck.

And yet, at least in this area, I’m not questioning God so much as my ability to hear him well. I guess this is one of those mixed things. I’m thrown by it, discouraged and saddened. I also know the experience can strengthen me. I want to be careful not to easily let go of a passion—one that maybe God wants me to have—but I am going to slow down and listen some more to him, see what he has to say.

I’ve been learning that to go after something I’m passionate about hardly ever takes the shape I first imagine . . . and that God’s shape is always far better. I want to trust more. I know that’s a freer place to live.

http://www.choose2livefree.com/
http://www.jankern.com/