Have you ever been right on “the edge”…and then not only does God take you closer and closer to the edge –you’re digging your heels into the ground, maybe even grumbling on the way…
…and then He makes you jump the cliff, knowing you don’t have the strength of your own to make the jump. The realm of impossibility.
“God, how am I going to do this??”
Sometimes in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget that God works this way. “God, why are You doing this to me? Don’t You know me? Don’t You know that I can’t take this? Don’t You know I can’t do this?”
ha! Yes, He does!
Why do these moments always seem to catch me by surprise?
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are times God needs to push me, not only to the edge, not only to the edge of my limit, but He needs to push me completely off the cliff, knowing that I don’t have it in me to make the jump in my own strength.
God has been taking me to this place in my life where I think I can’t go any further, that I can’t go any closer to the edge without a disaster…. and yet I find myself pushed right to the edge and *gasp* …..nudged completely off the cliff!
“God! How could you do this to me! How could you make me jump this cliff?” (I’ll be honest, yes, this is me pouting, basically.)
The thing is…. maybe the jump won’t be pretty, maybe I’ll stumble and trip on the jump over to the other side, maybe it will be clumsy, and maybe it won’t be very graceful….. but suddenly I’ll realize, “hey, I made it out alive!” I’ll realize I did jump the cliff. I’ll realize I did go further than I know I had the strength to go.
It felt impossible, it felt like I was about to burst out into tears at any given moment, but I made it over to safety, I made it out alive.
Maybe it wasn’t pretty, and maybe I did grumble on the way over a little bit (oh, Lord, I’m sorry), but wait… “I made it, and it wasn’t so bad! I made it out alive, and I’m okay, and I didn’t make too much of a mess, did I?”
He will nudge us… and it can be a nudge onto the path, and it can be a nudge off a cliff. ?
But I know that He does it because He wants to grow my capacity, He wants to get me to a place where I can handle more and more, and He wants to show me some things about trusting Him a little more with the steps that I take, and the cliffs, and the bumpy places in the road that I come to.
Maybe He wants to show me that there is no need to dig my heels or kick and scream and grumble… ??☺️
Sometimes He loves us with a comforting love, and sometimes He loves us with a “Fatherly nudge” kind of love. But it’s all out of love, it’s all for good, it’s all for growth, even when it’s painful in the moment.
Even when it feels a lot like dying…. after all, we are called to die to our flesh every day. ?
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” -Galatians 2:20
Father, forgive me for kicking and screaming and digging my heels into the ground when I know I can always trust You. I know You nudge me into the “impossibility” because You love me, and You want me to grow in capacity –more of You, and less of myself. Thank You for not letting me stay where I am.
-Heather ?