Reflections on Moving On

May-01-09
12:18 AM

Hello everyone,
Today on my drive home I started thinking about how many times I have moved in the past bit. I have moved four times in the past eight months. Moving so much really challenges my desire to hang onto things. It aids me in my efforts to live simply by challenging me making me ask myself if I really need the things that I tend to accumulate. It's hard because there is a part of me that wants to nest and have nic nacs all over my living space, but that part is losing to the me that goes alright well I don't want any more junk. Only useful things and my art because it is necessary for me to thrive. That mentality was sorely challenged when I went home yesterday and started going through stuff from my squirrel days. I tried on a pair of boots that my friend gave me two years ago. You have to understand these are not just any boots they are beautiful boots. I have large feet and often feel like the only shoes that fit me are clunky, but these boots made me feet feel pretty. You know how certain articles of clothing can make you feel as if you are in fact beautiful. These boots did that for me, but I never wore them much because they really hurt my one foot.
However, I kept them secretly hoping that my feet would shrink or that the boots would become just a little looser across my right foot. Today when I tried them on they still hurt my foot. In fact my foot is hurting now as I write this. The pain only serves to underline the ridiculousness of me clinging to a pair of boots that never fit me.
Why did I cling to this pair of boots? Was it the ideal they held? The dream of being something I'm not? The knowledge that I will likely never buy myself a pair of handsome boots like them? The fear that God doesn't really know me and therefore will only provide me with drudgery clunky rubber boots?
Honestly, I think it was probably a little of each of those things. The thing that scares me the most is that I know God, we have walked through many fires together. I have experienced His provision and love and yet there is a part of me that stubbornly clings to these useless boots saying I have to look out for myself because no one else, including God, will. The reality is that people often fail and I end up looking out for myself, but God, God does not fail. Whenever I fully place my trust in Him and throw myself upon his mercy He provides in ways beyond anything I can comprehend.
So why do I hesitate to trust Him? Why do I sit alone mired in fears? Why am I seemingly incapable of completely relinquishing my hold on my life even when I know it is the answer to my sometimes crippling fears?
The answer I think lies in my condition, that of being human. As much as I know the truth in my head and have experienced it in my life I still struggle to believe God's truth.
Imagine Jesus is sitting across from me staring into my eyes.
"Keep trusting me?" He asks as he holds out his nail scarred hand. "I love you and I promise to never leave you or forsake you. Keep trusting me, really trust me. Let go of all the things that are distracting you, don't embrace fear as a friend. Trust me, ask my Father, search for us and then you will find us. You will be given what you ask for and the things you trust me with will be taken care of." Matt 6&7
He is telling me that I can't rest in the fact that I trusted Him in the past and He came through, but I have to be actively engaging in relationship with Him journeying down the next path. Going over and over the lesson of trust until I really truly learn it. To the point where I am able to throw off all my possessions and fears living contentedly in the trust of God.
Unfortunately I am human and as Kenneth Boa says the renewing of our minds is not a one-time deal but a continuous cycle of "surrender and trust and of emptying and filling as the Holy Spirit replaces the lies we have believed with the truth of our identity in Christ". I know the truth; that God will provide and that the Creator of the Universe loves me deeply, madly, incomprehensibly for all eternity. That love is so great that He gave His only son, Jesus who was perfect to suffer, bearing the punishment for my sin. I have immeasurable intrinsic worth, because not only did God create me in His image and declare that I was good. He sent Jesus to rescue me when I choose to run away from Him and broke His heart. Even now when I wander and doubt He calls me back.
No matter how much I know this in my head and have even experienced it personally in my life, those lies are buried too deep and I doubt yet again. I cling to the boots as a toddler rebelling against their parent. I tell God that I don't really trust Him when I cling to these things, but I am learning to trust Him. To hold all things in my life with open hands. It is so hard and I struggle often, but I continue to hold my life in open upturned palms to God. My hands are open to receive but also open to surrender giving it all back.
So today I put my boots on the garage sale pile.