Tag Archives: trust aggressively

Journal Entries – Part 5: Leaving the Details

continuing from 5 November, Saturday 2011

I’ve been taking a bit of a thought trip in my journal, and setting down some elements  of that journey here on the blog. Previously I posed some questions as to what I’m supposed to do, what my attitude is supposed to be. Should I not have a routine? Should I not make and keep self-appointments to write? Or have them, but have flexibility when they’re broken? Give myself grace and keep trying?

God’s been answering those questions largely from the message given by Pastor John Farley of Lighthouse Bible Church on Thursday, 3 November 2011. You can listen to it here.

I’ve noted in the last three posts some of the principles in that message and my thoughts about them. In the course of his teaching, Pastor John noted that we shouldn’t be the same person we were two years ago. So I had the thought to look in my journal from two years ago on this same day, and got down the volume from what I thought was the right time frame, but turned out to be from November 2008 — not two but three years ago. I opened the book to where I thought would be near Nov 5 and hit on Monday, November 10 where, in large letters, centered near the top of the page I read:

Leaving the details may be a huge step of faith!

WHAT?!!!!

 This was from a message taught at Grace Bible Church by Pastor Joe Sugrue back in 2008. I could not believe my eyes. Here is some elaboration:

“I am to leave all the details to Him, claim the life of peace and freedom that IS mine. Leaving the details my be a huge step of faith. Follow Him, draw near to Him andwatch Him fill in the blanks.  He wants to do that. He doesn’t want us out searching for answers.

“Stop being distracted, come follow me. Let go of your life, follow Me and let Me fill in the blanks. Do you really, really trust Me?”

 “When the details are going bad, rough, we get entangled. We think, ‘I’ll use my power to fix them.’ (In fact the world is constantly telling us we must fix them and how to use our power to do so). No. Let Him. There’s a purpose in it all: to train you not to get entangled.”

There were various references to the fact that I have a calling on my life and part of that is to write the book I am now writing (though at the time, three years ago, that book was The Enclave.)

Three years ago, and the same subject. Pretty much the same conclusion, but this time I have a little more experience at trying this and failing, at having been dragged back into the details repeatedly. In fact, even in what I wrote three years ago I saw the seeds of me trying to do stuff again, telling myself how I needed to cut out Internet, this distraction, that one. The thing I’ve learned is, not all the things I think in my planning  are distractions actually are. And me cutting them out, is me doing it, once again. Not trusting Him to fill in the blanks.

It may be that God will cut certain things out, but this time around through this subject I’m realizing that the main calling on my life is not simply to “write this book”, no, it’s to grow in grace and knowledge of Him. It’s to grow ever closer to the True Vine, to abide in Him, and let Him… well, take care of the details.

Aggressive Trust

Today I was back to being distracted and doing the avoidance thing in the morning. In an attempt to get myself going, I pulled a couple of old journals off my shelf, wondering if the earlier me might have advice for the later me. Did I really feel this negatively, and flat and blank about the other books I’ve written when I’ve been at this stage with them?

Answer:  yes.

Anyway, I picked one that began in February 2005 during the time I was working on a second draft of Shadow Over Kiriath.  I opened the book and on the very first page — the frontispiece  — I’d written the following:

“The Lord has told me, again and again to trust Him aggressively  and to wait for His solutions with CONFIDENT  EXPECTATION.

To trust Him to guide and to trust Him to come through — that I won’t be ashamed, nor will my enemies exult over me or ridicule me…

…the blankness and the deadness are good things — they call to mind the lesson of stepping back and letting

God reveal things in His PERFECT timing

WAIT

and let God Gather together the waters so that the dry land appears.

***

Sit back, relax, give God time to work in your life. Don’t enter into struggle, condemnation and bondage trying to change yourself. Most Believers have a hard time realizing/accepting that God does not hurry in His development of the Christian life.”

Nor does He necessarily hurry in His development of a book. In fact, as I considered today, I realized that releasing it slowly, releasing things at a very rudimentary, incomplete level, when the story doesn’t seem very good, is definitely a lesson in trusting Him. If it came out great the first time through, there’d be no need to trust and I would unquestionably develop a fat head. Instead, if it comes out ragged, full of holes, wandering around, limpid characters having lengthy discussions about inconsequential matters — all words I need to tell myself the story, even if they aren’t words that will survive to the final draft — it forces me to trust Him. It forces me to have patience, not seeing, and to trust that He will indeed make all things, even this, beautiful in its time.

And having learned that, somehow, in fits and starts, I worked my way through the rest of chapter 1 to page 21.