First off, yes, I am laughing at the title of this post just as much as you are. I'm a sucker for a cheesy blog title. Second, things are about to get real (and not just because of my Ciara reference).
In the past month, God has been teaching me about the wilderness. Not the easy part of the wilderness, though. You know, the one where you road trip across the country with your BFF seeing all of the nation's most scenic landscapes (although I would definitely love for Him to show me that kind of wilderness one day). Nope. Right now, God has me out in the middle of the desert without a map. My tank is out of fuel, there's no cell signal, and I'm literally stranded.
Okay now let me stop there. You're probably thinking one of two things: "but Sarah, your life seems great on social media," or "but you always seem so happy!". Yes and yes. My life seems great and I pretty much always seem happy. But we all know things aren't always as they seem, right? Right. So let's keep going.
Here I am in the middle of the wilderness, asking God what on earth He's trying to teach me. Well, He is teaching me a lot. The big idea, however, is that I cannot do this life without Him. Anything I do outside of trusting Him is going to disappointment me eventually. Why? Because everything and everyone else is human, and putting my hope in another human just does not work. I have learned the hard way time and time again that people will let me down. People will hurt me. People are not the perfect humans I build them up to be. All of that being said, I know that people don't intentionally do those things. They just happen...because they're human.
My point is that people have disappointed me, and I should be putting my hope in Jesus instead of in a family member, friend, or significant other. And do you know what God told me, just now as I was writing this? Jeremiah 17:5-6. God literally wrote it out in Scripture for me (He knows I like to argue and debate whether or not something applies to me, but there's no arguing this one):
This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans,
who rely on human strength
and turn their hearts away from the Lord.
6 They are like stunted shrubs in the desert,
with no hope for the future.
They will live in the barren wilderness,
in an uninhabited salty land.
OKAY GOD. I get it. Mere humans. Desert. Wilderness. All the words I have used to describe the way my life has been going the past month, right there in front of me. Ouch–reality is tough.
But through this dusty, dry wilderness, God is providing. He is providing His strength where I am weak, His peace where I am afraid, and His grace where I am broken. He provides for me (and you!) just like He provided for His people as they traveled from Egypt to the Promised Land. We're all basically strolling through life, maybe one desert after the next, trying to reach our Promised Land. Though it may be challenging, know that the Lord is using your wilderness to grow you, protect you, and make you more dependent on Him. I see Him doing that in my life every single day.
Oh, let's not forget what I said about social media and being happy all the time. I don't like admitting this, in fact I don't even want to admit it, but God is calling me to be vulnerable and real, so that's what I'm going to do. The reality is that I've become pretty good at hiding the messy parts of my life on social media and in "real" life. My Instagram shows a self-confident, creative, adventurous, God-honoring college student. My "real" life shows a happy, friendly, always-laughing, Jesus-praising twenty-year-old. But even my "real" life does not depict me in my true light. Yes, I am creative and I love adventures and God and laughing, but it's basically a goal of mine to cover up any part of my mess that I don't want everyone to find out about. The mess of how much I lack self-confidence, how I'm extremely shy, how anxiety kind of consumed me this past semester, how I put all my hope in a relationship that failed me.
Yep. That is why I'm in the wilderness. God is pointing out all my flaws and limitations and failures, not to condemn me, but to grow me. He is reminding me of my own human-ness (is that a word?). Thankfully, though, God is showing me that although my limitations are many, He has none! And He will not fail me because He is God, and He is good.
That's why I'm stepping out in faith, doing a crazy thing like rambling about my messy little life. I would most definitely not be doing this if I was acting out of my own strength or ability. This is totally a God thing. It's pretty cool, but honestly it's mostly terrifying–the whole "be obedient to God in whatever He asks you to do" thing. Yeah. That's where I'm at right now. But I wouldn't trade this wilderness for the whole world, because God is doing a mighty work! And who am I to stand in His way?
Psalm 46:5