Psalms 86- Clarity

"1-7 Bend an ear, God; answer me. I'm one miserable wretch! Keep me safe—haven't I lived a good life? Help your servant—I'm depending on you! You're my God; have mercy on me. I count on you from morning to night. Give your servant a happy life; I put myself in your hands! You're well-known as good and forgiving, bighearted to all who ask for help. Pay attention, God, to my prayer; bend down and listen to my cry for help. Every time I'm in trouble I call on you, confident that you'll answer.

8-10 There's no one quite like you among the gods, O Lord, and nothing to compare with your works. All the nations you made are on their way, ready to give honor to you, O Lord, Ready to put your beauty on display, parading your greatness, And the great things you do— God, you're the one, there's no one but you!

11-17 Train me, God, to walk straight; then I'll follow your true path. Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I'll worship in joyful fear. From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord; I've never kept secret what you're up to. You've always been great toward me—what love! You snatched me from the brink of disaster! God, these bullies have reared their heads! A gang of thugs is after me— and they don't care a thing about you. But you, O God, are both tender and kind, not easily angered, immense in love, and you never, never quit. So look me in the eye and show kindness, give your servant the strength to go on, save your dear, dear child! Make a show of how much you love me so the bullies who hate me will stand there slack-jawed, As you, God, gently and powerfully put me back on my feet. "


You know, God is so good. He's just been showing me and showing me things, left and right, and I'm so surprised at myself that I've been able to keep up! I think it's pretty amazing. Yesterday, for example, I had slept over at Dayari's house because it was raining and late by the time we were done with our Dinosaur Nerd Party and I woke up super early to make my way to Tracey's because I was to help her clean. I realize that I had left thirty minutes earlier than I really needed to so while Tracey was getting ready, I hopped online and did a real quick quick devotion. I used a passage from the chapter that the "verse of the day" came from on www.BibleGateway.com and just ran with it. As usual, nothing is coincidence when it comes to God. It was very clearly something I'd been dealing with my whole life. "What do I do with my life? I have all these dreams and goals and ambitions and all these things that I want to do but I really need to just FOCUS... but on which one?!" And this would be on repeat over and over in my head.

Well my devotions from yesterday were basically about that. And it was something simple. Just a casual "run down the road God has called you to travel, and mark what you do with humility and discipline." So my hearts cry was basically (and it has been for a good few weeks now, since I've been getting serious about it and wondering and dare I say worrying) "What IS the road you have for me to travel, God? I need to know! Please make it clear as day to me what it is I'm supposed to be doing with my career, with my life. I want to do the right thing, and I want it to be something I'll stick with forever."

Well! Yesterday, one of the houses Tracey and I were cleaning belonged to a woman who just so happened to be home because she's a few months pregnant and I just never realized she's always been home- she worked from home. She warned us ahead of time that she would have to be on the phone with a work call. Well the more we cleaned and she got on the phone, I couldn't help but notice what she was talking about, and the website she had pulled up.

I finally realized she was consulting a freelance photographer! She was talking him through the photos he'd used on his website and continued to tell him which photos she thought would work better for the website, etc etc. I realized I was getting drawn in more and more the more she spoke, and it was a feeling so concrete, I've never felt it before in my life. I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing with my life. It was no longer a question, it was set in stone.

With that being said, God has really been showing me the importance of dreams and dreaming BIG because he wants to go above and beyond those dreams to blow our minds away. And he reminded me of what my ultimate dream job has always been: To be a photo-journalist for National Geographic. Now- That's something I'd looked into, and I couldn't find ANY information anywhere about how that was even possible. This is just... a difficult job to get into, and once you're in, you get paid to travel the world and take photographs that tell a story- aka- What I've always wanted to do my whole life.

So needless to say, I got extremely excited when I had asked Tracey to call this client back a few hours later to ask some questions about what she does and she told me that National Geographic was one of her clients... WITHOUT KNOWING THIS WAS MY BIGGEST DREAM! My heart started to pump exclamation points. It was a sudden glimpse that my dream maybe wasn't all that far away. Not to say that I would work for National Geographic- I don't want to set limits on God's blessing for me- but quite possibly something even more exciting. I don't know all that yet, but I do know I'm excited about it.

I just love God. I love his heart and that he wants nothing more than to give us the desires of ours. How in the world would I ever have lived without this sort of love for so long? This chapter of Psalms is my heart's cry. It has been for a while, I just didn't know what I was asking for (which dream to follow whole-hearted, how to follow it, etc.) and I love that God is faithful to answer.

Lord,
I thank you that you have set my path straight before me, that you have answered my prayer on what it is I should be doing with my life in the meantime of doing your will. I thank you that it is part of your will, and with that being said and set in stone, it's in line with the desires of my heart. You are a creative, powerful God and nothing I want to do is too big for you. I really, seriously can't thank you enough for your love. I wish there were more words in my English dictionary to describe how much I love you, like the Eskimos have a ton of words for the word "snow" because it's something so important to them. Give me more words to describe you. I ask, Holy Spirit that you remain with me now that I know what I'm supposed to be working towards, I ask for courage to continue down that road, and I ask for the provision to make it possible. Hang out with me today, Lover. I want to be with you today. I'm enamoured with you.

Amen.

"See Yourself as I See You" by Desiree R. Goguen