Woah baby, this past week has been a fight. I have been doing some battling, with God in the role of unresponsive “opponent”.  God is love, but I have not been so loving. I’d say “frustrated” would be the nicest word I could use to describe my interactions with God.

Some of my frustration comes because I feel God’s answers in the past haven’t come to life, so I struggle with distrust. How can I seek God for answers with other big life decisions if it appears He didn’t come through for me the past? Where do I go for direction after that?

Honestly, I know my frustrations contradict themselves. I demand things I crave, and then a few hours later, I confess I don’t really want those things.  One day I question what I want, and the next I’m angry because I don’t have things I felt God promised.  If I don’t know what my heart wants, how in the world am I supposed to expect God to answer prayers that change sometimes hourly?!

I imagine that to God, I’m like a football bouncing everywhere, demanding that He catch me.  I wait for answers, but don’t hear anything. It’s just quiet. Friends praise God for amazing things He did, about miracles where a situation was impossible until God intervened …and I’m sitting here like what the heck did I do to get ‘benched’? It makes me mad to see Him active in other’s lives, but not in my life – a lie I wasn’t successful in fighting this past week.

I know that although feelings are real, I’m also waging a war against the lies I hear internally. Regardless of the timelines I impose on God, He promises that:

“…if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 2:3-5

I know God is a good Father who wants to give us good things:

^“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:11

I know that part of living life means waiting through life:

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14

And I know, and am VERY thankful, that when I get mad at my loving Father, He forgives:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

With this post, I live in confession that I go through phases of struggling; that it is a battle for me to trust God consistently, and it’s hard to hurt well. But I also confess that every time I’ve been in a difficult position in the past where I’ve (literally) cried to God, “Please don’t let me go!”, He has been faithful to hold on to me and at some point, I reach a time of peace, of safety.

Although my actions don’t deserve it, THAT remembrance gives me so much hope for His continued faithfulness! This is my real life and this is what it looks like sometimes …just living the thing.