"Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” -Isaiah 49:23
I live near a large creek that spans for miles into other creeks and is also a tributary of a larger river. It's really very beautiful with trees growing sideways from the banks and turtles resting in the sun on bent branches or toppled dry rotted logs.
There's a park situated next to this creek just down from our house and local kids enjoy playing in the shallow water, collecting fossils and skipping stones when the creek is low enough to walk through it.
Upstream there's a lovely spot you can see on my way home from work. A little lip of creekstones that make a step or two of natural waterfall surrounded by reeds and grasses that circulates the water downstream.
When I first moved out to the rural farming community from the suburbs, I had never seen a groundhog (which I confused for a beaver) a turkey vulture or even a wild turkey. Moreover, I had never seen a Great Blue Heron. One day I saw that leggy bird with it's gray-blue tufts standing proudly on those falls and I had to ask my husband what it was.
Since then, I desperately try to take a picture of a Great Blue Heron on that waterfall or even on the other side of the creek which runs down the backside of our road. The Big Blue Bird stands on his rocky perch watching for movement in the pooling water on the falls to see a glint of a passing fish. Often, I "creep" up trying to be silent as a mouse in my junky, clattering, 20-year old truck, to photograph my bird friend so that I can paint him. Yet every time, he takes off into into the canopy of trees enclosing the creek. Again, I am disappointed.
Life is sometimes like this, well, many times it is like this. Things seem out of reach. You hold out your hand, you take a hold of something: a person, a career, your health, money, your sanity - and just like that - it slips through your fingers like slippery, muddy creekwater.
This week I was disappointed about a job opportunity I was hoping for. I got the call, but was told while I had an excellent background, a flawless interview, and plenty of experience, a government employee already in the system had been given the position. Although discouraging, I appreciated the honesty and actually receiving a call! I took it better than I would have years ago when I had a boiling temper and was frequently bitter at the world.
You may feel bitter at God like I was, like he's never going to answer those fervent prayers or that he's not listening, but remember this: Psalm 34:10,
"The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing."
What is good though when you are asking for healing, seeking a career move, a child, financial freedom or a partner in life? It's God. It's all about knowing Him, not just knowing about him. This means diving in headfirst seeking his glory, becoming so jammed-full of God's amazing love that it's all you desire. If you're seeking the good Lord, you will always have all you need.
While it doesn’t always make sense to us, we can count on God having a plan for our disappointments, right? Maybe?
Well, Jeremiah 29:11-13 gives us this promise too:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Even I may not understand His plans when it comes to being let down so often I should have PTSD, but I understand that through difficult times, God is building my Faith in all of this. He's by side guiding me, preparing me for the best job suited for me, one that is less stressful and will make me happy until retirement. Perhaps God is also making a way for the most magnificent shot of that elusive bird; settled soundless in the reeds of the falls, trolling the creek.
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