OVERCOME The obstacle!

For a long time in my early Christian days, the challenges in my life tripped me up as I tried to walk with God. I thought that God was supposed to rid my life of challenges & obstacles. When I read in the Bible that I can move mountains if I just believe, I knew I was on my way. . . until I had a circumstance the size of a mountain that didn’t move. Not just one mountain, I had a few of them. Have you ever read something in the Bible that gives you an idea but then when you experience something different in your life it seems like the Bible isn’t true? (I had a few of those experiences & this is one of them) I did what most people do that go to church, I prayed that God would move the circumstances. I prayed that my mustard seed faith would move these mountains so my life could go smoother. I’ll be the first to say that back then my understanding about how God deals with us was wrong.

What if I told you that God will allow obstacles to come in your life? What I f told you that God wasn’t going to move the “mountain” or circumstance you’re dealing with? Would that change the direction of your life? Honestly it did for me. I felt like since I was living the way God wanted me to live it would cancel out many if not all obstacles from my life. When I realized that me living “godly” didn’t guarantee my life would go smooth & easy I stopped taking my walk with God seriously. I did what is known as “backsliding.” My interpretation of backsliding: sliding back into actions, attitudes, & behaviors that you stopped doing because you said you were going to try & live your life the right way. When I realized that God wasn’t going to move the mountain of circumstances in my life I decided to go back, or “slide back” into my old ways. At the time I thought it was a good idea, but looking back on the decision I can see now why it was kinda stupid (lol).

See I thought God was supposed to make your life easy if you were a Christian. I thought that God would make things easy if you did what He said to do. The problem with this theory is I saw my actions as a manipulation tool to get something from God. Instead of my actions coming from a place of genuineness, they came from a place of deceit. It’s the same way a child hugs a parent to help persuade that parent to buy him/her a new toy. The hug isn’t based on the genuine impulse to show love, instead the hug becomes a tool that is used to manipulate the situation. I must admit my daughters have used their charm on me from time to time & I have been manipulated into buying this or doing that (lol). But God is just & He can’t be manipulated. He never moved any of my problems. At first God never did anything extra in my life. He allowed me to see ALL the consequences, obstacles, challenges, setbacks, roadblocks, detours, etc., etc. Initially these things made me backslide until one day I realized my life was only running in circles. It became apparent that if I wanted my life to move forward I needed to stop avoiding these situations & start facing them. One by one I decided to stop running from the obstacles & start running towards them. When I started doing that, I was amazed to learn that I possessed inside of myself the resources necessary to overcome what I had been allowing to overcome me! It is this enlightenment that I want to share with you today. I now understand that God doesn’t always move to deliver us, but He is always in the process of developing us. I was angry with God initially for not delivering me from my obstacles. I didn’t realize that He wanted to use the obstacles to develop a new set of ideas, gifts & talents inside of me.

Today I want you to consider that God may have you at this very spot in your life because He is trying to develop you in some way. Like a good parent God has to let you deal with some things on your own so that you come into a place of self-discovery. Think of it as coming to know yourself the way He knows you. There are strengths that He wants to bring to the surface. There are skills inside of you that you don’t even know you have yet. There are things that you are great at that you haven’t discovered about yourself, but He knows. It’s important you understand that God will not work in the way that seems to make the most sense to you. How else would God get you to see something about yourself that you otherwise wouldn’t know? How would He get you to even consider the hidden talents inside of you unless He allowed life to throw you into that particular arena. New things & places always look different to you because you’ve never been there. Soon you will realize that you have something inside of you that is waiting to bloom & blossom into greatness. Take this journey with God. Stop complaining about the obstacles in your life & start looking for opportunities to grow & expand. Maybe God is using the mountains in your life to show you that you’re an expert climber.