The Wilderness

I was the only one in Class 21 who had not landed a principalship. How can disappointment bring this level of shame? At times it became debilitating. The pain was tangible. I questioned every word given to me. I second-guessed my decisions. I was on this widening spiral of negative self-speak. I was on a destructive backward march because I didn't understand the correlation between timing and positioning.

Concerning promise, our expectations leave little room for timing. Man sees time as a barrier between what we want and having it in our hands. Operating in our expectations when pursuing God's promise causes frustration and doubt. When God's promise does not unfold just how and when we expect it to, we often lose focus of who's the leader and who's the follower. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves in front of God's will instead of walking alongside it. It is God's divine timing that advances us from destiny to destiny. It is his Spirit that guides and his instruction that we must follow. We can only see as far as our natural eyes allow us to see. God holds all the cards. He possesses the power to see beyond the trees, the only one who truly knows what tomorrow has in store for each of us.

I felt a solid unction to grab hold of patience and obedience (Matthew 26:39). Both require the same skill set-being still and reasonable. If I was going to get through this season, I knew I had to obey what the scripture asked me to do. I want to be clear; knowing what to do did not make it easier. It meant controlling my emotions, focusing on the lesson, and being willing to learn what God wanted to teach me this season.

There was this time when my children were younger, it was summer, and my husband and I had taken them shopping. Value City. And these babies shopped for hours-we had a cart full of clothes and shoes. We finally made our way to the front of the store to stand in line for checkout.

I went to pay, and the lady proudly announced that my card had declined. There was no way my card should have declined; I had just gotten paid; there was money in the account. I asked her to rerun it, and she did but then gleefully reported even louder," Declined!" I snatched my card from her hand, swooped my purse off the counter, and stormed out of the store without saying a word to the husband or the children. When my husband and children finally realized I was not returning, they made their way out to the car to find my hair on fire. "What happened? I had money. Why didn't you just let me pay for the stuff." My husband reasoned. I didn't even think about him paying. All I could think about was being embarrassed. When one of my children noticed that I'd walked out with a pair of sunglasses on top of my head that I had not paid for, we laughed, and I counted it, even.

I should have returned the sunglasses to the store that day, but I didn't. I allowed my pride and righteous indignation to drive my actions. And we still laugh about it--the day mama stormed out of the Value City with her stolen sunglasses but left all our clothes behind. Do you ever stop to consider what is driving your actions?

So yeah, being still and reasonable in certain situations requires practice. To tell the truth, I couldn't see myself. Had someone put a mirror in my face and rewound the reel, I still would not have seen how irrationally I behaved. And if your life is anything like mine-life hands you plenty of opportunities to perfect your actions and reactions. But sometimes, our impatience can lead us into dangerous territory where there is no redo-some decisions we make in our life are so absolute-like my resigning from my career in a moment of panic. It's like spilled milk. The best you can do is clean it up and pray there's more to fill a new glass. Those are the kinds of decisions we need to be careful when making.

I recall Saul, the Benjamite, whom God chose to be king over Israel. The children of Israel wanted a king so severely that God gave them what they wanted. They were not satisfied hearing directly from God through the Prophet Samuel. Saul faced the Philistine army not far into his reign 1 Samuel 13:8. Saul's men scattered about, hiding. Samuel’s instructions were to sit still and wait on him for seven days. When Samuel had not arrived at the end of the seven days, Saul called for burnt and peace offerings. As soon as he had finished the sacrifice, he saw Samuel approaching. Samuel was not pleased. Verse 11 “And Samuel said, “What hast thou done?" Saul explained that his men hid in fear. He told Samuel, When you didn’t come when you said you would be here, I called for a sacrifice. The Philistines were going to attack us, and we hadn't made supplication to the Lord yet. So I took things into my own hands and offered a burnt offering. Saul's accountability for his actions seems reasonable, right?