Unbeliever

One of the things I’ve been learning about sickness is that it can have the affect of making you an unbeliever in yourself. Seemingly unending days of not feeling like yourself can wear you down and things like vision and dreams give the impression of something that was part of a former life. To do anything beyond existing can seem utterly exhausting. I don’t think those of us who struggle with physical limitations are alone in this. We all experience twists and turns in life that lead us down an unexpected road. But what about our dreams? Did we get too old for them? Do they seem unreachable? Does it seem pointless to dream? Maybe I have to reinvent my dreams because of my limitations, but so what? At least I’m moving forward, even if only in my thinking.

Thinking about dreams and vision has forced me to think about how I see God’s Hand in my life. I’ve realized that I’ve been acting contrary to what I believe. Although I do believe God sometimes orchestrates things in such a way as to make the direction obvious, I also believe that He is no Great Puppeteer, pulling our strings to get us to move where He wants. But this is not the way I’ve been behaving. I’ve acted as if I can’t make a move unless I’ve clearly heard Him speak, “This is the way; walk ye in it.” This is not to discount times of waiting upon Him for that clear answer. Sometimes He asks us to wait. In fact, He often asks us to wait on Him. Yet how often am I personally in a stalemate because I’ve used waiting on God as an excuse when in reality I’m just too chicken to make a move? Don’t I trust God enough that when I live a life submitted to Him He is perfectly able and big enough to re-direct me if I start down an unwise path? Limitations may be the reason for this perverted belief that I’m useless because I cannot do the things I used to do or dreams are a forgotten art of the past, but He is not an unbeliever in me and so I must lay down my fear, since this is not the spirit He’s given me, take a deep breath, and move forward.