When are the right choices not the right choices?

When are the right choices not the right choices? 

(Spoiler Alert!) 

When it gets you out of the "impossible situation" the Lord is intentionally putting you in. 

We, too often, use "the right choices" to rescue ourselves instead of waiting in the uncomfortable or moving toward the impossible where reliance on God alone is the only answer. 

Today's Christian culture can lead us to believe that following Jesus gets us to the #blessed life where all our troubles disappear and there is no need for worry. I mean, how many times have we heard it said, "the Lord will never give you more than you can handle"? Even if we know that's not true, when it gets hard and uncomfortable we think we must be doing something wrong. We start looking around for "the right choices" to get ourselves out of the difficulties we must have somehow gotten ourselves into by mistake. 

However, that saying and the mindset are wrong! Nowhere in the Bible does it say he will not give us more than we can handle. On the contrary, we see time and time again where inadequate people are asked to do things well outside of their abilities and so much more than they can handle on their own. 

There are many examples in the Bible where this happens, but here are just a few...

• Moses challenged Pharaoh and rescued the Israelites from Egypt by leading them right to the Red Sea with the army chasing behind them. 
• Abraham was asked to sacrifice the child the Lord had miraculously given him and Sarah. 
• Gideon sent home all but 300 men out of his army of 32,000 before heading into battle against the "hordes" of soldiers too vast to count.
• Jehoshaphat moved toward an unbeatable army with praise songs and belief in the Lord's promises as his greatest weapons. 
• Jesus lets Lazarus die.
• Jesus himself dies on the cross.

Now pretend you don't know the outcome of these stories. How many "right choices" can you come up with to prevent these impossible situations? The problem solver/control freak in me has several for each one! I'm sure they did too! But they moved toward the obedience that put them in that place of absolute dependency on the Lord, regardless. 

What I know to be true is that when the Lord moves us toward impossible situations, where we have to rely solely on Him, it's not to harm us. It's so He can do what only He can do. It is always to reveal who He is (God), what He's capable of (the miracle), and to bring the much deserved glory to Himself. And so many times, in my own experience, I also gain a greater understanding of his perfect love for me in the process. 

Look back at the impossible situations from above and notice the miraculous outcomes the Lord had in store:

• He parted the Sea for Moses and walked the people between walls of water on dry land!
• He provided an alternative sacrifice for Abraham and blessed him for his obedience. 
• He goes ahead of both Gideon and Jehoshaphat and defeats the unbeatable armies without them even lifting a sword. 
• He brought Lazarus back from the dead!
• He made a way for all of humanity to have a relationship with Himself when He brought Jesus back from the dead! 

Who doesn't want to see a miracle? I'd say we would all love to see an actual miracle happen in our lives. He can give us gifts at any time, in any circumstance, but the truth is, we have to be in need of a miracle to receive one. Being in need of a miracle means you've followed God into your own impossible situation, and this is one of the most difficult places to be, especially for an extended amount of time, and most especially when we can create our own way out of that difficult place.

How many times have we missed out on our own miraculous experience because we made "the right choice" and got ourselves out of the impossible situation before the Lord was able to do it for us? 

Here's my current uncomfortable, impossible situation...

I've written about other times the Lord has lead us to take big steps of faith, but this one has by far been the hardest, mostly because it's been ongoing for over a year. 

In December of 2014, the Lord asked me to step out of ministry, away from a full time job. I knew I would fill my time pouring into my family and the people around me, but it was not a call to be a stay at home mom, it was a call to trust Him and be obedient in this season. 

We had some big decisions to make. When you drastically decrease your income, you must also decrease your expenses. As we sought the Lord we felt like he was also saying to not sell our house for a year. We did everything we could do to cut our expenses and stay in our house. We knew from the beginning though, this would eventually cause us to "hit a brick wall" as I've referred to it. The extra money in our bank account would only get us so far with this current plan. We've stretched and we've pinched pennies as best we could. We've made sacrifices. We've used the word budget more this last year than the previous 37 years combined! Our kids have learned to make choices based on budget as well...its been a hard year, but being tight with money isn't the hardest part for me. 

Knowing I can do something to fix the problem, and not doing it is the hardest part. I've offered plenty of alternative solutions to the Lord, only to get "trust me" as His answer. I am a little ashamed to admit how many times I've told God "but Dave Ramsey says...". I have complained to the Lord, argued with the Lord, thrown all "the right choice" options out to Him and cried many tears as we've made our way closer and closer to "the brick wall" we could see coming. I've battled through what people would think, what we would have to do for help, what it will look like when we actually hit bottom financially, and still He just calmly tells me He's got this, "I need only to be still". 

I don't know about you, but I don't sit still well. The good news is sitting still is not at all what it sounds like. Sitting still is not doing nothing, sitting still for us has been taking action to trust even when it doesn't look like a solution to "the brick wall".

Let me explain.

Here's where we are, at the brick wall. There's now less money in our account than we need to pay to deliver this baby in my belly. (Oh, did I mention He gave us a surprise as we made our way toward the brick wall...It's a girl!!) 

It's been over a year since He said not to sell the house, and now we believe He has said to put it on the market. If I'm vulnerable and honest, at this point selling the house means we likely don't have enough money for moving expenses, if we don't sell the house we can't pay the bills once the baby arrives. (You know, that brick wall we've feared since December of 2014.) So, sitting still for us is working our butts off to get the house we love ready to list and trusting wholeheartedly He has a miracle in store for us. 

We've followed Him (not always so gracefully, but the best we can) toward this impossible situation and we are expectant that He will reveal who He is, do what only He can do, and receive much deserved glory for Himself...I'll keep you posted!

When my life is over and someone tries to describe me, I don't want them to say "she lived a great life", I want them to say she was obedient to the Lord no matter what and we got to see the Lord do amazing things because of it. 

"Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God." Romans 4:20

#blessed 

#prayingforamiracle

#literally