February 15, 2025
Good morning, my friends!
Oh. . . if you had a chance to read last month’s news article . . . here is part two! Haha! Last month, I wrote about the presence of change in the air. In winter, the air becomes so bone dry and highly conductive to static electricity. Have you ever noticed fleece sheets sparkling in the dark with these sudden bursts of energy? It’s pretty neat! But let’s just say that when I wrote last month’s article, I didn’t fully realize just HOW charged the air was with change. Sparks were flying ev-ery-where!
Change is not something I look forward to. . . I don’t get bored with the status quo very often. I like “normal,” and I like stability. I love predictability! I am one of “those” who likes to read the last chapter to find out the ending–just because I can’t handle the suspense! Haha! *now you know my sin!
Change and the unknown make me feel so entirely vulnerable and out of control! So, naturally, I fortify myself with systems and structure through elaborate routines, highly detailed plans, time management strategies, ambitious resolutions, and goals.
I crave order and logic. Especially when it comes to the future! The future can be exciting, but it also can be debilitating to think about. (Hence my planning!) When I organize possibilities into plans, I feel “in control.” I feel like the future isn't as scary if it’s mapped and graphed in my head.
Now, remember when I said in my last newsletter, “Am I ready for change? Am I ready for a curveball? Am I ready for 2025 to up-end everything that I’ve known?” Haha! All I can do is laugh at the irony of the timing. I’m not even 2 months into 2025, and everything is up-ended! God has dealt me a curveball!
But through all this upheaval, I’ve noticed some things. . .
Logic and order:
I felt totally unsettled all Christmas break (and maybe even before that.) It was probably because of the whiff of change in the air. The dehydrated atmosphere was charged and poised for those crackly sparks. But just as I mentioned in the last newsletter–the hum of change tangles me into the tensest knot of raw and mangled nerves!
I know this about me. . . when God intervenes in my life and disrupts “my progress,” I wildly flail for the missing logic and order. When He directs me to do something, my brain goes into overdrive. . . trying to “fit it in,” and make “it work.”
But what about the radical change that can't fit into my timeline? What about the change that I never saw coming? Some things will never make logical sense to me. . . my brain can’t think it through. And I am still called to walk by faith and obedience into the unknown!
There is a deep-seated fear that is most likely my biggest fear about this walk of faith into the unknown
(it is a fear that can’t be appeased with logic. . .) The fear is this. . .
If I follow God down into this venture, does that mean what I have been achieving has been a waste? Did I just waste my time, energy, money, and emotions all for nothing?
I have a fear that God will let me waste myself on pipedreams. . .
Recently, this has been a stumper for me! But God gave me a new perspective on this matter.
The reality of the unknown:
One morning, as my scenery was smearing into itself because of change. God used Isaiah 41 - 43 to give me the peace to accept what I could not figure out. In those few quiet moments, my revolving world snapped into perfect clarity!
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“Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. . . Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.”
Isaiah 41:21-24
When God calls us to take a leap of faith, we have strong reasons of why we shouldn’t. It’s not safe! It doesn’t make sense! What will people think? I’ll be miserable! I can’t! And the list goes on and on. . . No matter the list I hold (it could be a mile long. . . ), God says it’s only a figment of my imagination! I don’t actually know that it’s unsafe or that I’ll be miserable–I only THINK that it will be so. I am well-versed in conjuring up the most horrible, lethal, and devastating worst-case scenarios in my mind about what will happen. . . but in the end, I don’t really know. I only think that I know. The Bible says that these imaginations are a "work of nought.”
One very important thing to keep in mind when I start to “catastrophize”. . . is to realize a very simple truth–I am not God! I am not Omniscient. God is God! He is Omniscient!
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Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God."
1 Corinthians 4:5
The Omniscient God:
Now. . . listen to what God–thetruly Omniscient One–says regarding the future!
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“And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”
Isaiah 42:16
“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:19
God knows the end from the beginning, and all that falls in between. When you formulate your list of your strong reasons, interspace the true character of God in between each point. He is good. He can be trusted. He knows all things. He is the God of all comfort. He keeps every promise. . .
The Omniscient God, Who is calling you to take a leap of faith–can be trusted! I am already trusting Him with my eternal destination. . . I can trust Him with my tomorrow!
Free-Fall:
Following the Lord into the unknown will require me to tear down my 2025 vision board, erase my 2025 planner, swallow some of my 2025 resolutions, trudge back to square one, put me back in the middle of the dark, slightly bruise my pride, interrupt my momentum, and withhold some of the achievements that I was looking forward to. . .
But my obedience in this is more crucial than all these things. . .
In my Bible, in the margins of Isaiah 41, I wrote the following,
“Mariah, God’s will for your life is bigger than your comprehension, your supposed failure, your current pride, and your present dreams.”
I took the leap–but I haven’t landed yet! Haha! Right now, I’m in a free-fall state. . . I don’t know what tomorrow looks like. But, instead of the 29 worst-case scenarios that I thought would immediately gobble me up. . . I only feel relieved!
Back to the deep-seated fear? What about the “waste?”
Here’s the thing: On this side of heaven, it’s too early to label what is a waste and what is not. Sure, some seasons and trials may have felt like an embarrassment, a failure, or a squander of a precious resource.
But (if you look a little deeper), growth, lessons, virtues, and connections came because of where I was. God’s will is bigger than my comprehension. It is designed to touch, weave, and entangle itself into other people’s lives. God’s will for everyone is so intricate that it matters (more than I can ever know) to be precisely in His Will at all times. It matters WHERE I am, WHEN I am there, and WHOM I touch!
And at least for me, following God into this unknown tomorrow. . . is requiring me to let go of some of my logic! (Proverbs 3:5)
–with love,
