His Ways Are Higher Than Mine!

How would you feel if you had a friend who only contacted you when she needed something? When you call her, she never seems to have the time to devote time to talk to you without being distracted. This same friend will call you at 2 or 3 in the morning to ask you for help with her screaming baby, but she forgets that the only time that she calls you is when she needs something. She doesn't seem to really be interested in getting to know you, either. How would you feel about this friendship? Would you even be able to call it a true friendship? I think that I would feel kind of used and unappreciated.

Well, this is what I have discovered that I have been doing with God. Yes, God. I was complaining about something to my husband the other day, and he was bold enough to ask me when the last time was that I decided to seek God's face instead of His hand. I was really caught off guard by his question. I'm not someone who "needs" a lot of material things. I don't really ever ask God for material things, either. I very rarely look at someone else's life and wish that I had something that they have. This is what I always thought "seeking God's hand" meant...

Yesterday, I spent some time thinking about this. I realized that I HAVE been seeking God just for His hand. That's practically all I've been doing, and I never realized it. I asked Him repeatedly to turn Anna from a breech position so I wouldn't have to have a c-section.

- He didn't do it. -

Consequently, I've found anger creeping up in my heart over the last several days concerning this. I have found myself thinking that if God really can do anything, and is really so powerful, why didn't He do this for me? I am in so much pain, and I've just been getting very angry over this. A lot of people don't realize how much pain I have been in, because I "look the same as usual" on the outside. Instead of finding myself complaining all the time when someone asks me how I'm feeling, I just usually tell them I'm feeling better than I was a couple days ago.
Well, I probably don't have to tell you that I'm realizing that this way of thinking is a very dangerous road to go down. Sometimes I surprise myself when parts of my heart are exposed for what they really are. I sound so selfish. I have been so selfish. I HAVE been seeking God for His hand - not His face. I didn't get "my way", and I've been upset ever since.

But...

No matter how I'm feeling, God's ways are higher than mine!

This reminds me of a situation that I was in a few years back. I was living in Philadelphia and attended a church that I absolutely loved. They had a bible college that I was attending, and I had "dreams" of working in the office there someday. They had a Christian school there for the children, and I prayed often that when I had children I would be able to work at the church and send my children to school there, also. (Those who worked there received half off tuition for their children.) At this point, I wasn't even married, but I still just KNEW that this was God's plan for my future. Why wouldn't it be? It seemed so right. It seemed to be the best way to seek after Him and provide a Christian education for my future children. The people who worked in the office were good friends of mine, and I knew (and liked) almost all of the teachers from the school. I was going to school there full-time, so I was there a lot. It seemed like I was there more often than not. I thought that I had found the perfect church to raise my family in someday. I prayed often that God would open up doors for me to work there, and I thought about what it would be like to have my children go to school there someday. I was so grateful for the opportunity that I KNEW God was going to provide me.

I now know that if God had answered my prayers the way I wanted, a tragedy most likely would have happened...

What I didn't know until a couple years later was that there was an endless list of things going on there that I knew nothing about when I was praying that God would open doors for me to work there so my children could go to school there.  I won't go into details, but after finding out what we did, my husband and I prayerfully left the church...

I guess what I'm getting to is that I'm being reminded (again) that God's ways are higher than mine. Even though I THINK that I know the entire situation sometimes, it's very possible that I actually know nothing!

I wonder how many situations God protects us from without us ever knowing it.