Good morning…
If you have been tracking God’s recent movement in my life, you realize that I feel feeble and powerless as I try to hold steady my small sails, seeking to catch the strong, healing winds of God’s powerful Spirit. Writing from scratch a companion study to Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s classic Gift from the Sea feels like a God-thing, not a Sue-thing. I like peace, comfort, slow moving progress, so this whirlwind experience feels both freeing and frightening.
I am not the only one waiting on God to lead. We all crave divine power, inspiration, and guidance. We all want God to move us forward into what’s next, full healing, clear knowing, caring companionship. Surrendering our control to follow God’s lead can be very unsettling. For we walk by faith [we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor; thus we walk] not by sight or appearance (2 Corinthians 5:7, AMPC). Faith. Conviction. Belief. Respect. Trust. Holy fervor. Walking in intimate step with a God we cannot see requires different strengths to grow strong in our places of weakness.
He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you [My lovingkindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation]; for [My] power is being perfected [and is completed and shows itself most effectively] in [your] weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ [may completely enfold me and] may dwell in me (2 Corinthians 12:9, AMP).
I sense the winds of Christ’s wisdom coming in from all sides.
“The winds of grace are always blowing,” whispers RamaKrishna. “It is for us to raise our sails.”
“The sooner we learn to be jointly responsible, the easier the sailing will be,” says Ella Maillart.
“The pessimist complains about the wind;” observes William Arthur Ward, “the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
I must tell you, in my low moments I am pessimistic about this process of teaching a God-guided study that is not yet written. In times of optimism I think, “Surely God’s invisible wind will change, bowing toward us unmistakably, becoming impossible to miss, easy to discern, burning-bush-like.” In reality, we who are powerless are left adjusting our sails to the circumstances at hand, trying to pick up any hint of God’s heavenly power.
The one thing I trust I know to be true: the will of God is unstoppable, growing in power, much, much higher than our own desires.
So here’s my advice… If this is just another movement arising from human enthusiasm, it will die out soon enough. But then again, if God is in this, you won’t be able to stop it—unless, of course, you’re ready to fight against God! (Acts 5:38-39, VOICE).
…Sue…
P.S. Our sailing report: last Monday’s Gift from the Sea roster of sixty-three women has expanded to include the names of one hundred and ten women, with several women studying one-on-one with a friend or leading their own discussion cohorts with small groups of friends. If this is a God-thing we won’t be able to stop it, so it is wise for us to adjust our sails, keeping ourselves perched on God’s healing edge.
