Ozzie monday

 

sort of cheating again here...sharing someone else's wisely worded devotional here because they're so much wiser than i. hope someone else is spoken to through this, too.

Excerpt from My Utmost for His HIghest by Oswald Chambers:

(from the passage entitled, Visions Becoming Reality)

"God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor's hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.

"The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it."

And that, my friend, is what I needed to hear today. That it's ok to be stuck in the valley for awhile. God is at work, even when it seems nothing is happening. I've seen my life take some crazy-fast turns lately, spinning me into a whirlpool that feels like insanity sometimes, but then at other times it seems like it's all come to a standstill. Nothing happening. Waiting for this. Waiting for that. Trying to get this or that, like a job. Nothing happening. It's all part of the valley. I will choose to be thankful for the valley. Enjoy the scenery. Learn from it. Just love other people and stop moaning and complaining. yeah, I'm preachin to myself here, but I hope the great "Oz" has inspired someone else today too. Enjoy the valleys. word.

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