Dependence on God is no easy thing. At least not for me. Every day I am confronted with Some. Thing. I am given an opportunity to decide. Sometimes it’s a big thing, sometimes it’s a little thing. Nonetheless, I am deciding every day whether to trust this God I say I believe in. That I tell others is brilliant and kind. Who is awash with love and mercy and gladness and smiling and favor and peace.
This Father of Lights, where there is no shadow or turning.
But there is shadow in me. The shadow of fear, whether realistic or not, whether founded in good sense or not, matters not. Fear is a thing.
I board a plane set for California this evening and it has been this anticipation of boarding and then flying that has created shadow. I do not like to fly. I am a terrible passenger, even in a car. I know from whence it all came, but that does not matter. What matters is this question. How do I live my life in dependence and trust given all the strengths and weaknesses I have that make me who I am? How do I trust when I want to control everything? I have to make a choice.
Tim Suttle in his book, Shrink, asks it this way-
“Which choice will best reveal my weaknesses and my dependence on God? Which option requires me to rely on God’s power, not my own?”
He goes on to say,
“It is all I can do to resist the impulse to hide my own brokenness. I don’t naturally want other people to know my struggles. I want to pretend as if I have my act together. But that is not where the power of God resides. The power of God resides in weakness.”
So this shadow. It tries to cloud everything about this trip. The chance to travel, the gifts that have enabled us to go, the opportunities to meet others who love Jesus, the chance for divine encounters, not to mention the opportunity to bask in the California coastline with my love. All this is in on the table for me and my mind keeps going to that plane.
I want deliverance.
Until then, I will walk toward the shadow. I will roll my luggage into the airport. I will wait in the boarding lounge and look at all the people who will be traveling with me. I will ignore the pitch in my belly when we’re called to board the plane. I will walk down the ramp, my head up, my chin definitely up and I will step up and into that narrow doorway and follow my husband to our seats. I will say hello to the person sitting next to me. When it’s time, I will snap on my seatbelt and then…I will breathe.
Sometimes you just have to walk through the shadow, you have to walk right towards the thing that scares you, because in that moment you are becoming the bravest person you know. In that moment, it is what dependence on God looks like.
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Somewhere in the middle 