Perspective.
I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective. I’ve found myself in some situations that have tested my faith in ways that I’ve never been tested. I have found myself begging God to deliver me from my hardships, provide for my needs, and make me feel better. I’ve felt defeated, helpless, and unseen by God. I’ve had moments of crying out to God “I know you love me but I don’t feel it”. The past few weeks I’ve ran across this word almost everyday in some way whether it be in conversations, interactions, moments alone with God, or space where my mind is just wondering. I believe that this time in my life has been a time of God releasing me from perspectives that held me bondage. I say that because I’ve seen no real changes in my outward circumstances and the struggles that I prayed for God to remove are still present yet I feel and see them very differently. My external positions have not shifted yet I see them as if they have.
transparency
I’ve been unemployed for an entire year. I struggled with feeling stressed out financially, I struggled with feeling like a disappointment. I felt like a failure. I was stressed about how I could get a job and make money, I couldn’t pay my rent. Doors were not opening. I was submitting applications and getting no call backs. I have a degree, experience, and a nice resume but still nothing was shaking. I began to pray and ask God for provision. I prayed and asked him for a job. I prayed and asked him to make a way and open a door. Still nothing happened. I began to feel abandoned by God and was angry with God because I was struggling but oddly I felt like I was right where he needed me to be. In prayer I asked him what I should do and he told me to do something that I thought was completely unrelated to a job or finances. I was frustrated by this and I honestly felt ignored by God. I felt like he was not answering my prayers but then I began to ask God what he was doing. When I asked this, I didn’t get an immediate answer but God began to highlight moments in my life and in my circumstance where he was releasing me from false truths that I believed about him, restoring things in my family, changing the way I see relationships, revealing blindspots in my walk, adjusting my desires, delivering me from materialism, teaching me to endure, shifting what fulfills me, transforming my heart, allowing me to see people differently, downloading purpose, and igniting ministry within me.
My lowest point
In what I will say has been my lowest place in life, God has given me the perspective to see it as the time that I’ve grown the very MOST in my entire life. He’s given me the eyes to be able to rejoice in my troubles and grow internally in ways that I never could without this trial. What I realized is that my frustration with lack of provision was a distraction from what God was redeeming in my life. I couldn’t even receive it because I was so focussed on it. I was obsessed to the point where I was praying to my problem and not to God.
“Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”
I’m not saying that God wants me to struggle, what I’m saying is that God has used this time in my life to bring me to a place of intimacy and reliance on him that has changed the way I see and think. He’s protected me from going through doors too soon that I thought were right. I’m closer to him than I’ve ever been before. A friend of mine told me that it’s in these seasons that God becomes our daily bread and I can’t relate to that enough. In a season of lack, I’ve felt more fed than I have in my seasons of abundance. I’ve began to experience joy where there is pain and sorrow. I’ve began to love my life and love where I am because of the fulfillment I find in being close to him. What I’ve realized is that my circumstances don’t necessarily need to change, in fact in some cases it’s probably best that they don’t.
Conclusion
This is truly a brain dump. It’s really been hard for me to approach writing about this but it’s been on my heart write about perspective for about 3 weeks. I’ve come to write on it and quit like 7 times but It’s been so consistent in my time with god that I finally just had to sit and pour out what was on my heart and piece it together (lol). I’m not sure if any of this even flows or makes sense but I know that people are probably in similar situations, feeling alone, abandoned, unseen, and just struggling. I know I’m not alone. I know it’s difficult to see things that are not and to have a shift of thinking and honestly it’s impossible without God. I just want to encourage someone who is in a tough spot to ask God what he is doing that you may be missing, that you may be distracted from seeing, or that you may not realize because of what is before you naturally. Ask him to give you perspective, renew your mind, and grant you spiritual sight. Remember the things you prayed for God to do within you and see has he begun that work in your struggle.