The other day someone made a comment about me being a bit hostile sounding lately…in regards to my social media updates, they seemed to think I may be struggling with some anger issues and they could sense a bitter undertone to everything I wanted to say publicly…they were right.
I am angry. I think. I am confused about where I am emotionally to be frank about it. For over a year now, God has undoubtably asked me to trust him on a journey that not one person on this earth could have possibly prepared me for…He asked me to basically get on this ship with me and my family and ride out some rocky waters and I kept waiting for this feeling to come to me…this feeling of “ok God, I’ve been obedient, now give me that peace you promised me before I started this run”…but that feeling never came…not to say that I wasn’t on the right road or that I wasn’t doing it correctly…it was just that I went on with life while waiting for this feeling He was going to give me because I was doing what He asked of me…turns out, not only did I not know the destination of where this ship was going to end up but in the middle of our sailing adventures God turned the helm quite aggressively another direction and our course changed directions…I had more to do…no…but no…I don’t want more to do…I would rather not God…but here’s the thing…He looked at me as I looked at Him as a confused, cranky, exhausted, begrudged little child pleading my Father not to make me do it and He said “look around Allie, who else should I ask to do your work for this family?” and I looked to the right, to the left, up and down and spun in circles to see who else could do what He was asking of me, and I realized there was no one else, because me and my Father were out on a boat in the middle of an ocean, He had strategically put my family and I on a vessel to head out to the great unknown and asked us to put all our hands in the water and begin to pull out the drowning, the neglected, the abused, the confused, the forgotten. I got it God, okay, we are the only ones out here right now, we will do what you ask and start to help where we can, when we can but when He turned our vessel in that new direction, He had phase 2 mapped out for us, and that would require us to be crazy…to be radical. Every time I pouted or questioned why He would choose me, He would remind me to look around and I would see a vast ocean, shamefully bow my head and say “yes, yes God, take me where you need me” and in usual God like fashion, I have absolutely no idea where we are headed but I know it’s big and it’s messy and its uncomfortable and all my flesh wants to stomp my feet to the safety of my bedroom and cry in my pillow while refusing to obey but my spirit knows better and so we go. I will say, after you take the first step in obedience and of faith, God has a way of throwing the obvious in your face and making a very clear way to whats next for his servant…whereas the first time you hear Him, you question Him and make every excuse in the world to not acknowledge what He’s asking of you and walk a little more blindly …now He seems to just be obviously directing my path and as much as there is a security in that…I feel a sense of frustration that others are not feeling this calling with me…that is selfish, I know, but I cannot kick it. This is lonely. This road to radical is lonely and this is only the beginning so how much more will I desire others to understand when Im truly in the trenches? Where is my platoon? Surely God, surely you’re not choosing me to lead this army…that makes me laugh every single time I think about it really…God, Im you’re lil rebel…Im Allie…Im a disobedient fool who’s gotten herself into more trouble with her feisty mouth than anyone else I know.
Im angry, I think, because all I can think about is this…that if the God of the Universe would be satisfied for someone like me to lead the way to radical love and change, my mind cannot even begin to fathom what significant world changing could be done if I looked around one day and started to see ships filled with people coming to meet us from every direction and God would say “here’s My people, they heard my call too, now all of you get to work.”