If you watched me while I worked, spent time with my family
or the ladies in my bible study group you would swear I was an extrovert.
Not so.
I’m a die-hard introvert. Or maybe I’m a chameleon. Either
way, I’m not as outgoing or as open as I may present myself. Now it’s not that
I’m lying to the world, it’s just that what you see is only a small part of who
I am.
I’m a guarded person. There’s been way too much heartache in
my life for me to fee comfortable truly letting my guard down and letting
others really get to know me.
But God’s not done with me yet.
In fact, as I started thinking and praying about what
direction and focus God would have me concentrate on this year; I was somewhat
surprised when He didn’t actually give me a single word like He had in the
past, like faith and joy. This time He gave me “relational living.”
(Sigh) Seriously Lord, I thought. What exactly am I not
doing that You want me to focus on relational living?
Honestly I had no clue until a couple of weeks later while I
was sitting in service and the pastor mentioned the words, “unplugging from
isolation" did I even consider the correlation between relational living (purposefully reaching out to those God places in our lives versus hiding away from relationships in order to self-protect).
Now we all know that our world or at least part of it,
lives, breathes, eats, sleeps and thinks technology in one way shape or
another. And there’ve been plenty of studies that have shown that the more our
society connects electronically the more we disengage from one another.
So at first I thought, “Not me Lord, you know I barely watch
tv, my phone has more gadgets unused than used on it and frankly if I didn’t
live with 3 techie’s in my life to fix the computer hiccups, I’d throw the
stinker in the trash and move on.”
However, that’s not quite what He meant…
Instead God, as I have started figuring out, wanted to point out that I was isolating myself from others on purpose. Ouch!
My past is filled with deep heartaches and betrayals that
began at an early age so I learned to protect myself by keeping a smile on my
face, going through the motions and never really allowing myself to engage in
any sort of real relationships, with the exception of my husband and children.
Everyone else is kept at bay.
So to have God push me out of my comfort zone and try to
connect with those He’s placed in my life, yep, this one’s gonna be a doozy and
frankly I’m not so sure about any of this.
But here’s what ’m learning. When I’m obedient to what God
is calling me to do, He is with me (and you) every step of the way, and we are
never alone.
When I started thinking about my walk with Christ and how,
if I am going to go deeper and not just have a surface relationship, and really
allow God to work in and through my life, then, my first step is obedience.
But what does that look like? How do I unplug from
isolation?
First I prayed about it and asked God to show me a way to
step out in faith to do what He was asking.
The first thing He had me do was take something I love to
do: cooking – and serve the ladies in my bible study.
Now this may seem pretty easy and the cooking part was. But
what was hard was stepping out, offering something about myself (my cooking
abilities) share it with the ladies in the group.
Now for someone like me that’s HUGE! I tend to skirt into
class, take the bible study, offer a little small talk and then bolt once the
video is over.
Not so now. For the past few weeks, I’ve brought something to share to my group. And God bless these sweet ladies, they’ve been gracious
and wonderful.
I don’t like the attention. It scares me to death. Especially
when someone lengthens the conversation beyond a “Thanks for bringing this, I
skipped dinner to get the kids to church on time.”
But I’m doing it anyway. Shaking in my boots, scared someone
will actually talk to me or rather, want to talk to me, but I’m doing it anyway.
God asked me to. And I love Him. And I want to grow and be
changed by His love. Not only for myself but so that others in my life, however few they may be at the moment :) will also be touched by His love. So while this is hard and most times I want to run and
hide I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen. I'm gonna keep stepping out in faith, one tiny step at a time and allow Him to change me.
There's a saying that goes something like this: You can’t serve two masters. Do I love
and serve God even though unplugging from isolation is hard and very
uncomfortable or do I serve myself and my protective nature and go back home
having never reached out to try and make new friends and to grow beyond the
pain?
I can’t do both...
I choose God. I choose to trust Him, knowing in advance He
loves me more than to leave me where I am.
And I’m thankful.
What about you? Is God calling you to unplug from isolation?
Are you hiding from a hurt or a pain that you don’t want to face? I’m right
there with you! But more importantly,
God is with us. He will strengthen, lead and guide us through every difficult,
challenging growth opportunity if we only turn to Him and ask Him to lead the
way.
I’m game…are you?
I'll be praying for you every step of the way.
Until next time,
Blessings & best wishes,
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