There can be a bit of madness in trying to figure out what God might be up to in our lives. One day, it can seem so clear that he is steering us a certain way. Things seem to be falling into place like the tumblers of a great lock. We are certain that we can hear them clicking into place.

And then, an hour or a day or a week later things take such a turn that we decide, “No, those were dominoes falling.” The thing that we were quite sure we really, really wanted becomes an impossibility. Whether it was God saying “Not yet,” or “Not ever,” we feel a keen disappointment.

Most often in my experience, those disappointments have always been rooted in worldly desires, things not at all essential to my spiritual development, service or devotion. When we are quite confident that God’s plans will match up with our own, it is quite easy to pray “Thy will be done.” In the other cases, not so much…

Hopefully, it is something other than a sour grapes philosophy that brings us to a point of acceptance in the aftermath of these frustrations. Eventually we may come to see that what unfolds in the following days, months and years brings us to something far better than what we believed we desired and deserved. Whether that happens or not, quite frankly, is not really the point.

God desires—and requires, it seems—true submission from those who seek the blessing of truly serving him. My squirming and murmuring is quite likely evidence that even after over sixty years, the process is still ongoing.

At the very least, those frustrations are proof that he is still working on me!

H. Arnett
12/13/18