Storms and Sun

Good Morning!

I stopped for a minute to think of how to be like a sailboat today.Keep reading

As I hear from different people throughout the day and talk to clients and patients and friends, I notice so many common things.One of them is the need to know our purpose, our reason, our drive.We need to have something to work toward or we float through the day and it can feel mundane.

I was reading from a devotion:

“When we see how God has chosen us, and why, we have a grand encouragement to expect that His will shall yet be truly fulfilled in us and by us.”Rev Hubert Brooke

In my own mind, I have often had a vision of how life “should” look and what “fulfilling my purpose” would look like.At times, it seems that it is yet to come and that I’m working toward that.Do you ever feel that way?

As my devotion continued, I got the image of a sailboat from 2 Peter 1:21 where it says that people were “moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”The author said that the Greek word for “moved” is phero and was often used for a ship carried along by the wind.In this passage it refers to the people “raising their sail” to be moved by the Holy Spirit.

It isn’t the boat that is moving itself along, it is the simple act of opening the sail.The Holy Spirit does the work and it by His power that it moves.At times there may be gusts that propel the ship faster and at other times it is gentle and moving the ship slowly, but it is determined by the Spirit.

For me, that is so much more peace-producing.To know that by simple opening my sail, I don’t have to know when to power on and when to slow down.I just need to open the sail of my will each day and let Him move me.

Yesterday I had a particularly busy and crazy day at work.I literally was running behind by an hour for most of the day and worked right up through lunch.As I felt my pulse increase and sweat forming as I faced another perturbed patient who said “an hour?” I said in my head, “Lord, help me.”It felt relentless, like I’d not get through all the people waiting and get back on track.This was not the vision of a calm, peaceful day that I had prayed for! But, in the moment, I prayed for grace and that patients would understand.Each and every patient who initially started out angry, by the end of the visit had asked if they could see me again. That was not me, my friends.That was the Holy Spirit.In my own head, I was praying and trying to give each person what they needed but it is the Spirit who allowed me to remain calm, say the right things and ease the patients.

This was part of the purpose, as I see it.I am not waiting for some day when I can do what God wants me to do.It is in these every day, seemingly stressful and not-according-to-the-plan moments that He is moving my boat along.It is funny that I do know it in my head, but sometimes it doesn’t “feel” like it.

If you are feeling like you are in a place where you aren’t moving or you don’t feel like your day to day life is fulfilling your purpose, I suggest that you just open your sail and ask God to propel you.He will do it in your day now…not just a future date when everything looks the way you envision it.

When we trust that God is the wind in our sail and He knows how to direct us, the pressure is off!We can let Him use the storms and the sunny days to do what His will is.We will always be carried in the right direction because it doesn’t depend on our strength, but His alone!

jennie