Allowing God to Direct Your Life
I don’t know…I have spent the better part of my life trying to figure out what Allowing God to Direct Your Life really means. The older I get the less that I think “random” really exists…but then again, could it be just a matter of me over-analyzing everything until my mind finds a purpose? Is that God really speaking to me? After all, people who do crazy things often say that God told them to shoot someone, or blow something up. And so it goes…that inner debate within.
I have spent my entire life trying to figure out God’s role in my life. There was a point in time when I was an atheist…another time when I was agnostic. I used to think how could God possibly be interested in directing everyone’s life? What was He…some puppet-master in the sky moving us here and there like some gigantic chess game? Why would God care about me winning the lottery, or me getting run over by a bus, having a wonderful life, or a horrible existence? Why would He care about you…or anyone?
I have reached a point in my life where all that inner debate and turmoil has ended. I will be 64 years old in a few months. I can now look back at the path I have traveled, and I can see that both good and bad things in my life happened for a reason. I have been tested, and as a result of those trials and tribulations, I am both stronger and wiser. I can see now that those people God placed in my life were there for a reason. Some served as good examples, and others served as bad examples…but they were not put there randomly.
Several years ago, I was reading a book about Dr. Issam Nemeh. Dr. Nemeh is a medical doctor here in the Cleveland area. Dr. Nemeh also happens to be a faith healer. I know…I know…some of you are thinking faith healer??? I have put a link here. He appeared on the Dr. Oz television show, and Dr. Oz didn’t consider him to be a fraud, or a fake. There are things in life which cannot be explained by man. Here is the link…http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=dr+issam+nemeh+on+dr+oz
In the book I was reading, Dr. Nemeh explained that when he lays his hands on someone, he knows instantly if that person is going to be healed. He then went on to explain something which I found so profound. He said that a person’s healing was not about the sick person, it was about proclaiming the power of God.
I let that gel with me for a while…a person’s healing was not about the sick person, it was about proclaiming the power of God.. Um…pretty interesting! We humans are a pretty self-centered lot. We tend to think everything is about us. Perhaps a part of process of being here on Earth is learning we are connected to each other, and that everything is not all about us.
Those of you who are parents will be able to appreciate this analogy. Remember when your child was an infant, and they didn’t have the ability to “know” about the needs of others…their only concern was informing you by crying that their needs were not being met? As teenagers, remember how at the dinner table, they would take the last serving of food without thinking twice whether anyone else wanted it? Remember how much pride you had as a parent, when at the same dinner table…they finally asked if they could have the last piece of meat? Better yet, remember when they finally told another member of the family to take it…even though you knew they were still hungry. They had finally learned empathy! They had finally learned the world was not just about them. Sadly, many adults never learn this childhood lesson.
I am not sure exactly how we are connected to God…but we are connected. It’s not a connection that can be humanly explained…but it exists, and is real, just the same. We are adrift in a river of spirituality. If we go with the flow of the currents, we stay connected. If we fight the currents, and try to go in a direction of our choosing, the journey will be a lot rougher than it needs to be. Our life does have a beginning, middle, and an end. God is the guide, but we have free will to follow, or to seek our own way.
In some earlier postings, beginning on February 23, 2012, and ending on March 27, 2012; I wrote a series of 23 posts chronicling the trials and tribulations of the adoption of our daughter from El Salvador. In those posts, I wrote that my wife and I felt that adopting Gina was something God had asked us to do. Somewhere around 7 years into it, everything came unraveled. All of our hopes and dreams for a normal life raising a daughter vanished into thin air…and with those dreams; our faith vanished as well.
We spent years adrift in our sorrow, and our bitterness. We were angry at God. But you see, just as child fails to see past his self-centeredness…we adults can become blind to the fact that life is not about ourselves…it is about promoting the power of God.
Lost in the limitations of our humanity was the fact that our adopting was never about our family, there was a higher purpose. Out of that despair, we started to see the loving hand of God touching our family in ways unimaginable. Bridges, we thought were destroyed beyond repair, soon were rebuilt. People entered our lives from out of nowhere, and they suddenly brought healing and comfort.
While our family life with our daughter wasn’t what we envisioned at the time, we have found meaning and purpose in God bringing us together never-the-less. We were asked by God to watch over one of His own for a while. Gina had been injured and couldn’t walk due to injuries suffered in the civil war in El Salvador, and today she walks normally because we had the courage to follow God.
Gina has since gone on to reestablish a life with her biological brothers and sisters here in the states, and also with her mother and father still in El Salvador. Recently Gina told me that her biological father is now a leader for an organization helping war orphans from El Salvador reconnect with their families. This was the same organization that reunited Gina with him and Gina’s mother 20 years earlier. He has gone from a corn farmer, making around $3 a day, to a world traveler in his efforts to heal families torn apart by war.
So you see, God’s plan was much bigger than just us…but God’s plan always is. We are pieces to much larger puzzle than is humanly possible for us to imagine.
Today, part of my journey is for me to tell you about the power of God…and to tell you that your life has meaning and purpose… that your journey is more than just about you. You too, because of the trials and tribulations you have experienced, are here to tell about the power of God in your life to others as well. We are God’s better angels here to proclaim the good news.
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