Jesus Commands my Destiny

I have had the song "In Christ Alone" in my head for days now.  It is such a great song and full of beautiful truth, but the line that keeps ringing through my mind is

"Jesus commands my destiny"

It is so true! I am NOT getting all doctrinal this morning.  I believe that the free will of man and the absolute sovereignty of God can and do coexist because Scripture teaches that they do.  But today, this week, this season of my life, I am so thankful that Jesus does indeed command my destiny.

This morning as I was reading my Bible and praying and singing this song in my head over and over, I began to think about how He really always has commanded my destiny.  Like from the beginning.  But I won't go that far back this morning.  

This morning as I meditated on His Lordship over my life, I thought back to before I was saved.  When I was in my late high school years and then college, my heart was seeking.  I was filling it with a lot of junk and got myself into some very dark places, but that's not the point of this musing.  

Back then, when my heart would ache with loneliness and I was searching for a God I didn't even know I was searching for, I would find my journey often ended at the beach.  Alone.  It was the place where I ended up when I knew I was too small.  

I've always thought it was because my Dad from a young age instilled a love for the ocean in me.  I can remember taking trips to Hermosa Beach with him and the warmth of the sand and the taste of salt as some of my earliest memories.  But this morning I had an interesting thought.  Although I am not saying that the love of the beach that my Dad gave me is completely separate from it, I think it is interesting that the beaches I ended up at (Oceanside pier and Tamarack) just happened to be common surf spots of my wonderful hubs.

Okay let me back up a bit here and give you some more info so this makes more sense. 

Christian's mom told him at about 15 that he should add to his prayer list his future wife.  Sounds a little crazy, but he did.  He would pray for his future wife the things he prayed for himself, to have a great day or good devotions or whatnot.  

At about the age of seventeen, he felt God saying to him, "that's great that you pray for your future wife, but what if she isn't even saved yet?"  So he started praying that his wife wherever she was would be aware of Gods presence and if she wasn't yet saved that she would surrender her life to Jesus Christ.  I was twenty years old at the time and VERY lost in drugs and all kinds of yuck that the world offers.  This was the season of life where I would find myself down at the beach, watching the surfers ride the waves and the sun set and just wondering if there was something more than me.  Then  KNOWING that there was something more than me but not knowing what.

As a lost twenty year old I spent that year seeking, finding glimpses, turning away, turning back.  Always finding myself down by the water, begging to understand something.  That was the year that Christian spent praying for his future wife to GET SAVED! And two weeks after I turned twenty-one, I surrendered my life to Jesus.  Almost a year later I met Christian and well, the rest is a cute story but not the point.

This is the point: 

How crazy is it that as he prayed for me, I was drawn to the very beaches where he was surfing to ponder and seek out the God who so wanted my heart!  Like, I am tripping out thinking about the fact that I probably watched him surf while I was searching to know what life was about.

Jesus has been seeking after ME from before I even knew what to call the gaping hole inside of me!  And He is cool enough to use the man I would eventually marry to pray and gather me into the fold!!! 

I would sit on the sea wall and think how pointless my life was, how dumb and empty each step I took was.  But it wasn't.  Sometimes even now it is easy to think how pointless things might be, like how frustrating it is to have wait for ANOTHER test (oh and they switched me to a different doctor again), or how empty each day can feel when you can't even do the laundry and make dinner and play with your kids.  But I believe that my seemingly pointless moments now are not unlike my perceived pointless moments then.  Each time I sat there, empty and at the end of my understanding, I was closer to the TRUTH: that He loved me, that He came down as a Baby and LIVED and DIED for me to not only set me free from sin but to welcome me into His loving embrace that had always been there I just couldn't see it!

This applies NOW, too!

Each time that I come to the end of my understanding in this whole thing with my heart, each time I cannot get up for hours at a time from my chair in the corner of the living room, maybe (not really "maybe") I am closer to more truth, deeper truth, truth about His character and love.

You see, nothing is wasted.  Even if I miss it and don't understand it, HE IS WORKING ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR MY GOOD.  Someday, I will look back at this season of sickness and see the intricate things that He is weaving together into a beautiful picture.  For now, I will look at the beautiful craziness of the fact that I sat on the beaches watching my future husband who was praying for my salvation ride the waves of an always changing ocean and KNOW that this too will be beautiful.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11