Here we are in a brand new year filled with opportunities and adventures, happiness and sadness that we have yet to experience. I’m excited to discover what this year will bring. I’m learning (yet again) to count my blessings rather than dwell on the things that are “less than” what I would have wanted. Seems I have had to learn that lesson over and over again. Each year brings challenges and opportunities for growth that we can choose to embrace or push away. I had a friend one time who said that it seems that when God is ready for you to grow He puts you in a vise and starts tightening it down while He is saying, “Okay, time to grow some more.” I have to agree that sometimes that is exactly what it feels like. And more than once I’ve tried to wriggle out of that vise and stay right where I was because it felt just too uncomfortable to grow.
A very wise man once told me that we only grow through adversity. I admit that when I heard that, it rang very true in my heart, but I didn’t like hearing it. None of us cherishes the thought of marching headlong into adversity. I like the feeling of sailing along on smooth, open waters with not a cloud in sight. Or those mountain top experiences when I feel as if I’m on top of the world and nothing can touch me. But when I’m honest with myself, I know that I don’t want to stay always the same. I do want to grow and mature – like a fine wine, as they say.
I’m beginning to wonder if so many of those “vise times” – otherwise known as opportunities for growth – weren’t made even more difficult than they had to be because of my penchant for trying to wriggle out of the vise and find an easier way to do things. I heard someone say yesterday that when we’re in control, God isn’t. Not because He can’t be, but because we won’t allow him to be. We keep stepping in His way. I know I stepped all over his toes the last few years trying to do things my way and I know those last few years were tough ones, to say the least. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that I made them a lot tougher than they had to be because of my determination to make things happen MY WAY.
Now, in this new year filled with hope and promise, I have decided that I want to stop trying to wear God’s shoes. Instead, I think I will fall in step behind Him and see where He takes me. Wherever it is, it has to be better than the paths I’ve chosen myself for the last few years. I’m ready for the adventure – but in my own shoes this time.
