This has been a very interesting past couple of weeks for me. And even though I try to never post about what I am dealing with at the moment to keep from getting into muddy waters, I decided to break my own rule.

These past couple of weeks I feel God was leading me to do something that I did not want to do. It was a decision that to my eyes seemed like I could allow to continue and still go on and have a good life but something inside of me was so troubled. Every time I sat down to pray, I felt God showing me to make a decision.

I actually wrestled with it for a couple weeks..I guess willing to keep my spirit troubled then actually taking action..

And then I decided to just give it up, and obey what I felt. I missed God’s presence and the feeling of him leading me each day and this felt like it was coming between me and him. But the hardest part of all this was hurting another person. So, instead of fighting or ignoring what I believed was his leading, I started asking God to help me to obey him in the right way.

As my mind began to wander today, I began to realize..that I literally had to obey God.  I already knew what not obeying him looked like, and he let me suffer enough to allow me to see the benefit of listening when he speaks.

I realized that the times I did disobey only led me back to a place where I would eventually obey. The times where I ran in the opposite direction, thinking I did not have what it took to obey his words, he would cause me to run into someone who would remind me of who I was. The times I ran, he would cause the circumstances to bring me right back to another place where I would once again have to decide to follow him, or go through another winding road. That was until he allowed my life to crash and it brought me to a place where I was desperate to follow him.

When I look at my life…every road brought me right back around to him. It was either obey him now or obey him later. I know it’s not like this for everyone but I do believe it is like this for the believers who truly have a love for God. He knows the ones that really love him for him. Those are the ones he won’t let go of.

Those are the ones where he knows what their potential is. He knows that they have never had a marriage that lasted in their family but he sees a mother and wife that can grow a great family in them, so he will cause every relationship to break up until they finally obey him and allow him to heal them. He knows the man that can own several businesses but that man doesn’t have the confidence to believe that his dreams can really come true so he will allows things not to work out over and over again until that person says, okay God how do I do this? Where do I walk? What do I do? Then he can lead them.

I began to think over my life and that scripture came to my mind ..Where can I go from your presence..where can I flee?  I know what it is like to run from what I felt I needed to be doing. I know what it’s like to feel stuck in the belly of a whale or in my life-terms in a situation so bad that it gave me a chance to come to myself, to come to a realization that there was no other option but to obey God..to move forward instead of running scared, to finally give what I knew I should be giving instead of trying to protect the things he wants to use ( the things others didn’t deem as valuable)…I know what it’s like to be stuck in the belly of a whale.

The whale saved Jonah, but I’m sure the feelings that came with being swallowed by a whale and stuck in something so nasty, didn’t feel like something that was going to save him. But in the end the whale or the terrible circumstance is what caused him to finally gain enough courage to take hold of what he was supposed to be doing in the first place, and become a book of the bible.

I’m so thankful for the “whale” in my life. A few years ago I went through something that to others looked like a huge crisis, but the crisis was never that. The crisis was that I had reached a place where I disobeyed his voice, choosing to put my trust in man rather than the God who had the supply of all the love I could ever need.

The perceived “crisis” literally saved my life by killing my life. The death of me was the life of me. It was the first time I really started walking in who I really was since I laid down my purpose. It was the first time I was bold enough to have the courage to believe the many times he had showed me who I really was. Before then I had so many excuses on why I couldn’t, when I would do it..All the while begging God to do what he already wanted to do if I would only trust him.

Some of you are not in a bad life or bad situations because you are supposed to be there. Some of you have been ignoring what you felt for so long that you have convinced yourself of what other people believe about your situation. I dare you to listen to your conscious, instincts or his voice and start surrendering to what you really know you are. Sometimes, he will lead us in ways that don’t look right to us because he has the whole road-map. He knows the secret parts; we just have to trust him.