No Eye Has Seen

I said goodbye to my husband and the Alabaster team today. Off to Kenya they go...without me. I kept it together at the airport. Smiled, feigned peace, made jokes about them being an all South Asian team flying together to Dubai and then Nairobi. It was all so cordial.

But inside, I was dying. Faint of heart characterizes how I feel in this season. I can't rely on my heart these days. One minute, I trust God and I lean in and the very next second, I am in complete disbelief, angry, running far away.

What do we do when our heart, the central hub of our emotions, is no longer reliable? 

What do we do when our limited...oh so limited humanity, comes up against the sovereignty of an Almighty God, whose thoughts, ways, timing, reasoning, thinking, planning are 100% higher than mine?

God and I are supposed to be so intimate and yet we aren't even on the same playing field. It's like trying to play chess with a giant. We don't see eye to eye, I can't predict His strategy, I can't see His body language or facial expressions, I don't even know what pieces He's moving.

So everything in my heart says He's not good...He betrayed me, deceived me. He's a giant that can't be known or predicted so is it even worth it?

Unreliable.

So I need to press in deeper, much deeper. Past the tears, the confusion, the anger, the hopelessness. I need to find the inner place of my spirit.

Ugh...sounds SO new age-y and flimsy. And yet, in my deepest places, I know it's true. I need to move, act, think, pray, praise, cry through my spirit in this season. Everything else is death.

My spirit says this: Even when it hurts, I'll praise you. Even when it hurts like hell, I'll praise you. Even when the fight is lost, I'll praise you. It's actually a Hillsong song, but it's truth today...every day...each day I wait for you, N.

I praise you God.

I praise you Jesus.

I praise you Holy Spirit.

I put a period after each time because that's all there is. Just praise. I have nothing else to turn to in this season. I have to live from my spirit and praise God even as my heart feels like a weighted stone -- a chaotic, entangled, turned-inward muscle fully incapable of praising God on its own.

Life in this season and frankly in every season can only be fully lived from the place of the spirit.

Living from the spirit is way easier said that done. It means that external cues, emotions, logical rationalizations have to be thrown in the garbage...incinerated. It means having to believe it's true when Isaiah 64 says (paraphrased): No eye has seen, No ear has heard, what God has planned for those who love Him/wait on Him.

WHAT???

For a control-freak, enneagram 3, the above verse is awful to me. Ultimately, it means we can't ever fully know what God has in store. All we can know in our spirits is that God is good and His goodness NEVER fails. Everything else is really not within our capacity to fully know.

I am living this out right now...why? Because EVERY SINGLE PRAYER that has been prayed over me regarding the timing of me getting pregnant (including my own prayers) have been 100% WRONG. Every. Single. One.

So, this tells me this: either all of these precious people are wrong and can't hear from God (which I know to be untrue) OR...

No eye has seen, No ear has heard...

For some reason, this season of listening and hearing from God has been ravaged by seeming misinformation. Chracterized by words I thought were for me, but clearly have turned out not to be.

What do we charismatic, evangelical, pentecostal Christians do in the midst of this?







Praise. 

Press in...deep into your spirit. And even when it hurts, praise.

For one day, you will see, for one day you will hear, and you will look up and say:

Those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame. He has done it. (Psalm 22)






P.S. N., if you ever read this, know that this was the greatest lesson your parents needed to learn in this season.