Have you ever been placing a rubber band around something only for it to suddenly snap and go flying across the room? Stretching beyond the breaking point seems to be the theme of my life right now. There are days that I feel as if the Lord has asked me to do things that I am physically incapable of doing. I feel like a rubber band that has reached its stretching capacity and at any moment I am about to snap. It is there that the grace of God intervenes. The Lord may be stretching me beyond what I feel is comfortable, causing me to feel inept. However, that is exactly where He wants me.
Seven months ago I began raising financial support to become a missionary in Brazil. Since then the Lord has had me on an incredible journey of learning to trust Him. In Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby writes, “God’s ways and thoughts are so different from yours and mine they will often sound wrong or impossible!” I cannot even begin to count how many times I have felt that I was incapable of accomplishing what the Lord was asking me to do. However, each of those times the Lord proved Himself faithful as He enabled. I have come to realize the Lord wants me to be dependent upon Him. He wants me to realize my incapability and the fact that I need Him in everything I do. He wants me to go beyond what I am comfortable doing and continually be stretched and molded to be more like Him.
So, in those moments of feeling like a rubber band, being stretched beyond capacity, I realize that the Lord is at work. I may feel like I am about to snap due to my incapability’s but the truth is it isn’t going to kill me. The pain I feel is simply growing pains. It is the feeling of death to self and growth in Christ.
I realize that when the Lord calls me to something, no matter how much I don’t understand it or how impossible it may seem, I really only have one choice. I must follow Him with complete abandonment. Abandonment to who I am and what I am comfortable doing. And I must again remember, God’s ways and thoughts are so very different from mine. He knows what He is doing and my job is not to understand, my job is to trust and obey!