I’ve been lost for the past couple of months. My sense of direction has been off, I’ve been going around in circles. My compass isn’t tracking North. I’m not usually this way. Usually my sense of direction is really very good. There’s been a plan laid out before me by God or by me, I go along my merry way following that plan. But recently, that plan, that trail has been faint.

I’ve tried to identify why I’m spinning in circles. I’m doing all the normal and right things. I serve at church, using my gifts, pray, read my Bible (most of the time) but for some reason the same old same old isn’t working like it normally does. If I had to describe it I would use phrases like “cat on a hot tin roof”, antsy, discontent, uncomfortable in my own skin. What to do?

Maybe I need to get more organized. Maybe if I use my time wisely, schedule myself differently I’ll get on track. Maybe I need to work out more, eat less, pray more, play less, play more, work less, work more, sleep more or less. Nothing was working.

I would hear pings of information that would stir something in me. Usually having to do with Spiritual Disciplines. I worked that around on my mental tongue for a while….hmmm…more discipline in my spiritual life? So I stuck that idea in my cheek and left it there to dissolve while I went about my merry way. But the discontent grew and I must admit it was starting to make me a little cranky.

Doing all the things I had been doing wasn’t doing it for me anymore. Something was missing. I needed to be doing something that I wasn’t doing.

At a retreat I had a very interesting experience where God used another person to speak to me very clearly. I went to speak to a man I knew for a spiritual consultation. This was new for me and I didn’t know what to expect. This man, a man I knew and trusted, a Godly man spends time with people, listens to them and then if there’s a word for them from God, presents it to them. If not, he prays for you at the end of your time.

Sometimes God sends you experiences out of your norm because you’re not able to hear him in all the normal ways. What I learned from God during this experience had an impact on me. Not so much a lightning bolt type of experience but more of a falling into place of ideas and words God had been presenting me with at different times through different people. Things that he had been murmuring in my hear clicked into place that day.

There are different elements that he said to me that I’ll talk about in different posts but one that stuck with me resonates and guides all the other ideas so I’ll start with that first. The message to me was “You know what you can do, you’re a woman of action, people know what you have to offer. There are so many things you can do, so many directions your career, ministry, life can go. But have you ever stopped to do an inventory of desire? You know what you can do but do you know what you want?”

That stopped me. It’s been so long since I’ve evaluated what I want to do as opposed to taking every opportunity to use in all different directions the gifts God’s given me. Having your fingers in so many pies means that you might not know what kind of pie is your favorite or if you even like pie! So many times we hear the phrase “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” but what about “just because you can doesn’t mean you should want to”.

So, I’ve started a new stage in my spiritual journey. It’s leading me I don’t know where but one thing I know, it’s part of figuring out who I want to be. Who I want to be in God’s eyes, who I want to be in my husband’s eyes, my children’s eyes, the eyes of those I serve, and who I want to see when I look in the mirror. It will be an interesting journey because I’m excited to see God’s plan for me in this. Who has God created me to be? Created me to be that incorporates my likes, dislikes, skills, failings, giftings, struggles, all of these things. Ways that I want to grow, mature, refine, develop. This doesn’t look like it’s an instantaneous epiphany for me. I think it’s going to take some work and I have no idea where I’m going to end up. We’ll see.