Pings, Patience and Big Picture... Keys to Happiness

So many times I've cut in front of God in deciding what He would want me to do (for the sake of time of course) and pressed on under great stress because I wasn't sure whether it was the right decision. (Of course it wasn't! I'd only reasoned that God would want me to do the thing I wanted to do -- totally different than actually doing what God wants you to do... sorry for the run on). The process of making stressful life decisions tempts us to choose based on what would seem likely to lead us out of the stress most quickly. But "the way that seems right to a man"... is almost always wrong. Unless you have prayed, meditated & WAITED - waited for God to show you the answer, you can be pretty confident that you will drag out your stressful situation much further than need be. This subject can be so confusing - especially in the early days of learning to follow God's Holy Spirit as it pings your conscience... Those pings take some training to recognize and further training and faith building is required to learn to follow them courageously (I have been known to be quite the coward many a time!). God trains us by positive reinforcement and by allowing us to suffer trials through which He can build powerful faith. Every single time we recognize that ping from God's Spirit in our conscience and we choose to follow it - we are rewarded in spades. We receive peace and confidence and comfort in knowing that the most powerful creator God the Father and His Son are intently focused on us and leading us personally by the hand when we choose to follow. There is no greater reward. He gives us everything we need to be happy. Making the decision to follow God's lead in a given situation is always the hardest part - after you get past that part, its all downhill because He then gives you the strength and courage you need to follow through.

I often consider that the things I used to believe represented security and happiness are NOTHING - less than nothing - compared to what I have now. My life looks so vastly different now than it did just a short 8 years ago. My husband was relating trials that led to our conversion to friends today and so its on my mind. We appeared back then to have it all - perfect homes, nice cars, lots of money. We cared about our friends and family, were fun and generous to boot. I loved my career and was extremely driven to be the absolute best at anything I was doing. Looking back on it now through eyes washed with many tears from many trials, its easy to see that what I really wanted then was recognition - the money was just a bonus. I wanted to be something special. "I" is the key word here - it was all about me. I achieved everything I attempted plus more and thought that I was pretty talented - but more importantly others thought that I was special. What a shame that in the process of becoming so "successful" my marriage almost fell apart and I had no relationship with God - but that was something I didn't waste too much time thinking about - what really mattered was that I kept conquering new levels of success one after the other. The irony in my case was that the more "success" I attained the less I appreciated what I had already attained. How sad to have been so absorbed in something so futile and meaningless in the big picture of God's plan for us. Today I am by no means well off, could care less about the latest fashion, drive a Jeep Cherokee that has almost 200,000 miles on it (still have a BMW from the old money days but it is almost embarrassing to me to drive it - a deeper discussion there I suspect). I wouldn't go back to that lonely, miserable, pointless life for any amount of money. I now consider myself to be in boot camp, having been broken down and built back up - serving a better purpose and waiting on God to show me if there is a healthy way to use the talents He has given me. There is a certain type of challenge that comes from professional work which I do miss at times, but until God has developed my character to suit His purpose for me, it seems clear that He does not intend for me to return to the professional arena. I'm for now just thankful that God has been so patiently developing new facets of my character so that I might be so blessed as to one day help in achieving His awesome goals.