From childhood, we all have dreams of what we want to be when we grow up. Little girls dream of becoming ballerinas, nurses and mommies. Little boys dream of becoming firemen, policemen and astronauts. As we move from childhood through our teen years and finally arriving at adulthood those dreams may have changed but seldom does or present day reality line up with our innocent childhood fantasies. Our dreams may not have changed but never could we have imagined the journey life creates. The twists, turns and detours and the unexpected stops and starts along the way gives each of us material for our own made-for-tv movie.
I learned through the years that much of what I dreamt of as a child has not followed me into adulthood.
Often times when I take a moment to look back it's hard not to regret some of the choices I've made even though at the time those choices made perfect sense yet born from an immature, inexperienced mind. Today, was one of those mornings when I began to reminisce and as I began a dark plunge into a "woe-is-me" hole, I was mysteriously jerked off that path; my eyes were opened and it was at that moment I had to acknowledge the goodness of God! I had been seeing my life all wrong, thinking that dreams unrealized meant failure. Not so. Sometimes dreams unrealized really means deliverance and salvation.
We only hold a small piece of the story of our lives. We play no role in our creation and we are given details of things to come on a "need-to-know" basis, which means, there is very little we need to know except that we must trust, believe and obey the One who has created and written the story from beginning to end.
As I continued my look back, I became aware of the "Not" Principle. Meaning that we know that God can do all things; He can do anything but fail. We also know that we can ask anything and He will hear our prayers and answer. When we are Babes in Christ we often expect our answer to always be in the form of yes; granting us our wishes like a fairy godmother with a nod of a wand. But as we grow to know the True and Living God, we learn that the answer is always according to His will for our lives which often means, "No." So, in finding contentment we must change our mindset to understand a very important principle which is this, "He may NOT give me what I ask for, but it doesn't mean He can't. My desire is His will Not mine!" Our awareness of God's Sovereignty over us keeps us grounded especially during those times when we may want to whine when we don't get our way.
There's a line in a very popular song that says, "If it had NOT been for the Lord on our side, tell me where would we be?" I shudder to think where I would be if God did not love me enough to NOT give me everything I asked for, wanting the best for me and demonstrating that love with a simple, "No." Thank you, Lord for your unfailing love for me! Thank you for the blessings of, "No" and for showing me how to be content in the NOT's of life!
Until We Meet Again...
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