Megan in our front office and I were talking small talk with him. I asked him how long he has been going to their church and he told me the most amazing story.
He told me he attended a different church in Vista for 25 years. He was very very involved (Elder) and very good friends with the pastor who was there just as long as he. Then there was a time that everything he was at this church that he loved, he felt something inside of him feel like he wasn't supposed to be there like he was invading and that he needed to be somewhere else.
He went and talked to the pastor who had become he good friend over the years about it. As he told him this story. His pastor responded with this, "The Lord told me about a month ago that you need to leave our church, I have been anticipating this conversation."
The man then left the church and spent a few months trying to figure out where he was supposed to be church wise and ended up at the church that came up to camp.
This story is incredible to me. It has been on my mind all weekend.
Last night as I was walking home from work at 9:00 pm and it was so incredibly beautiful out. The sky was dark, but you could see so well. in the darkness off in the distance where you can see the city lights of the town below, there were these white burrowing clouds that looked incredible. It was one of those incredible views that you could never capture with a camera, you just had to see it to experience the beauty. As I was in awe about how beautiful camp is and how amazing it is that I live in such a place, the story of that man came into my mind.
As I continue to walk home I started to pray, the kind of prayer that you feel God walking next to you as the words come out to God. Praying that when it is time for me to leave camp; now or 50 years from now, that the Lord will speak to my boss and tell him that I need to move and that he will be ready and prepared for my departure before I even am. That the reason I know that it is time to leave camp it would be made clear to both my boss and me.
Not in a way "I'm fired" kind of way or anything else, but that the Lord is calling me to change my life, that I am being obedient to him and need to pursue something else.
Last night in this amazing time of prayer I felt bold and strong in seeking the Lord in this. I seemed to be a normal way for this to go and exactly how I want it to be.
None of that has changed. But as I sit outside and write this, I have all these other thoughts in my head, "What if I really want to go? what if my boss leaves before me?" What if I get fired?" My time of prayer and my simple request do not feel that simple anymore. I feel like I pleaded for something that I am now afraid to have.
Doubt is such a weird thing. What I am feeling doesn't quite make sense to me.
I know that God loves me. I know that he hears my prayers, he knows our hearts he wants us to turn over our lives to him.
And I want that as well. But turning over our lives to him has so many more emotional levels to it than I really understand.
I feel like my biggest struggle isn't handing over things in my life to him. It is when I submit it to him and don't know how to handle no longer being in charge of that area in my life. I think of all these different situations and scenarios that make me not doubt God, but doubt who I am and where I put my faith if these situations happen.
Does that make any sense? This concept has been formulated in my mind as the word are being written on this page. I think it makes sense to me, but I haven't fully explored all of my thoughts on it.
What does it mean to fully surrender to the Lord? I think it is having conversations with the Lord about everything in your life and giving it to him.
I think that fully surrendering actually saying that we are giving Him everything to him and letting Him have it. Not in a "God here, you go, here is everything" way. But saying God, I am really to give you my career. God, you are in charge, do not let me do anything in my job that isn't of you. And then doing that. It is real, not just something we say.
Giving it to him makes me feel a little queasy and unsure of how it is all going to work out and continuing pushing the thoughts of doubt out of the way and focusing in on what God says. I think I have fully surrendered my love life to the Lord. I think I started to process of fully surrendering my career to the Lord last night. But I don't know if I have given any other part of my life over to Him yet. I don't know how to really really fully surrender my life to Him outside of praying for ways and opportunities to surrender my life to His way and not to snatch it back when I can't handle not being in control anymore.
I feel like experience this is so different than talking about it. It seems easy with words. It seems stupid not to fully surrender our lives to the Lord. but now in the process of giving Him the two most big and significant parts of my life gives me the feeling of doubt and anxiety in this bubble of feelings I have around me but I also have this tunnel vision shooting out of me. I have this excitement and good emotion that I cannot identify, coming out of me that can not wait to see how God is going to use and do the things in my life that I have given him COMPLETE control over to and how our relationship is going to change as I seek and pursue to give him everything in my life to Him.
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