Let Go and Be Led

I was given a book for my birthday.
It's the type of book where I looked at, thought it looked minimally interesting, and then set it aside for the next gift. "Reckless Faith"...a title that made me inwardly shrug...old story, read a book or two or three just like that already. But a few days later, I picked it up to look it over again.

Let Go and Be Led

Yes! A tagline of five little words but my heart was immediately caught...the prayer of my heart, the desire for my present/future. Then I read a small review "For those among us who feel led to care for orphans..." If those previous 5 words weren't enough, that review did me in. I knew this book had to be read and quickly!

Reckless faith isn't determined by my circumstances...it is born and can grow daily in the quiet moments when my flesh and spirit collide and I decide to let it happen.

"Reckless Faith" by Beth Guckenberger is a book that is part biography of how God has used and is using her and her husband, Todd, among orphans in Mexico, Nigeria, and India, and part the shaping of her faith through lessons that she has learned from God. I'm only a third of the way through the book but let me tell you, I'm ready to go help orphans.

Never again will I offer up an explanation that spins God as weak or passive. If God doesn't come through in the way I want him to, it should expand my view of faith, not shrink it. It means there is something else going on, something I can't see or understand, and I have the opportunity to be swept up in it or not.

My life hasn't turned out anything like I imagined. Some of that is very good. What is that one country song...sometimes the greatest blessings are the things that didn't work out??? Some of the other things leave me continually questioning where God is leading me, how God is going to use me, and when oh when will God send me my Beloved? The mystery of the unknown leaves me feeling like I am walking in darkness. But it is in my darkness where He can shine the brightest. It is in the darkness where I depend on His voice and presence all the more!

I believe in a God who is intricately woven into the soul of each person he knit together, and he has written chapters we have yet to read.

I don't know what's next. I don't the setting that will surround me or the characters that will be introduced to me. I don't even fully know the plot or how the conflict will present it. But I can rest assured that God is there. He has written my future. His desire to use me far exceeds my desire to be used.