Breaking

So here's a list of things you shouldn't say to God unless you really mean them:

1. I want to live a "Sermon on the Mount" lifestyle.
2. If you have to take me through a desert in order to solidify within me my calling, my purpose, and to build something REAL in me, do it.
3. Lord, simplify my life.

I've said all of those things in the last 2 months. Guess what? God listens and answers. However, those prayers, said in moments of desolation and desperation in my time with God, gave permission for God to do what he needed to do in order to have more of my life. That means getting rid of things that may distract me and pull me away from Him. And sometimes, the stripping away is hard. It involves changing relationships, changing focus, and changing the very paradigm through which I view the world.

It may mean suffering a broken heart. I've been dealing with a broken heart this week. It hurt. It was painful. But in the middle of it all, I knew that God was right next to me. Psalm 34:18 says:

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Amazingly, in what has been a really hard time, I've felt God, my friend, my dad, sitting right next to me. When the crying was over and the reality was there, staring me in the face, there was this reminder:

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

In a time where I would normally fall apart, I simply said to God, my heart is broken; would you please be near me? And he was. I asked him, would you comfort me? And he did.

And for the first time in a long time, I feel like he's truly where he needs to be in my life.

I'm looking to Him, and I'm radiant with the expectation of seeing His glory in my life. Does that mean things will turn out the way I want them to? Or that, like a spoiled child, I'll get everything I want? Probably not! God is sovereign. If things need to happen in my life that I think are crappy so that his bigger plan can take place, so be it. This story is much bigger than me. I just need to remember that.

What's beautiful is that, in the middle of the sovereignty, in the middle of the bigger picture, he tells me this:

Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry,
but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.