There’s a purpose in this long
story so just bear with me. I get home from work yesterday and get on my laptop
and I watch a video from Heather Lindsey on YouTube about this year’s pinky
promise conference (last year’s was amazing, you don’t want to miss it this
year if you can go). I close out of it and my computer screen starts showing
yellow blotches…hmh that’s weird. So I figured I just needed to restart it and
it would be fine. Yeah no…it now proceeds to turn green! So I say hmh well let
me shut it down, take the battery out, and let it sit for a minute. Go back to
it later, not only is it now pink and green the screen has doubled so now it is
two of my desktop and everything that I open. I immediately think oh gosh this
isn’t good! I have homework to do on Thursday and a paper that I have to work
on that’s due Sunday but I have to work on it prior to Sunday because I have
plans for the weekend, I have to get these videos together for the conferences,
I have to do this, that, and the forth. Now read that as fast as you can
without taking a breath and that is how it was running through my mind. So
needless to say I’m stressing just a tad!
I go to Walmart’s website on my
phone to see what they had that I could pick up right then because I couldn’t
wait the 3-6 business days for it to ship, I needed it now. I find one that I’m
going to order simply because it’s the cheapest and let’s be real I’m not
balling out the park so it’s not like I have a couple hundred dollars laying
around to buy a new laptop spur of the moment. I screenshot it and send it to
my sister because she’s a computer person and she tells me not to get it
because the operating system was something weird. As I’m scrolling through the
laptops that are in stock and what she advised me to go with, all I see are the
prices going up…and up…and up and my stress is going up…and up…and up. I
finally order one and it’s in stock at my local Walmart but it’s late at this
point so I said I’ll just pick it up today on my lunch break. Not even a ½ hour
later, I get an email saying I’m sorry that laptop is actually out of stock and
your order has been cancelled. Really though…
I say to myself okay God, I’m going
to take my hands off of it and let you take care of it. Not even an hour later
I’m back on my phone searching for another laptop aka not taking my hands off
of it and not letting God handle it. I order a second laptop and once again it
says it’s in stock and can be picked up the next day at my local Walmart. I
wake up this morning to a second email that once again says j/k we lied to you,
this one ain’t in stock either. So now I’m a little irritated, okay a lot irritated,
one at the fact that my laptop has given up the ghost and is donezo and two
that Walmart keeps telling me that they have these laptops in stock that they
actually don’t! Nonetheless, I order a third laptop because I need it and I can’t
wait for it to ship 3-6 business days. You got it, not in stock sorry your
order has been cancelled. At this point I’m thinking Walmart are you trying to
make me lose my Jesus today??? Are you really trying to make me lose all of my
salvation because this has just crossed the point of ridiculousness!
I’m getting ready for work and I
just have an attitude; I’m in my feelings. As I’m driving to work God puts in
my heart Israel Houghton’s song Jesus at the center of it all. You cannot have
an attitude with that song playing in your spirit. You cannot be stressed out with
“from my heart to the heavens Jesus be the center, it’s all about You” playing
in your heart on repeat. I texted my best friend and tell her about all the
shenanigans and I thought okay God what do you want me to do? The real question
that was proposed however is why didn’t you come to Me first? Insert big eyed
emoji!!!! God showed me that I went all around Him trying to find the solution on
my own but never turned to Him initially to give me the answer. So now I’m left
frustrated and irritable when all along all I had to do was to turn to the One
who always had the solution. God showed me that while Jesus at the center was
playing in my heart I was at peace and I wasn’t stressed out about it. He
reminded me that we don’t have to wait for the solution to be found in order
for the stress to leave or for us to have peace. It’s when we go to Him first,
He can provide us with the peace even when we don’t have the solution yet. But
we spend all this time trying to figure it out ourselves and we get frustrated
when we fail…miserably.
I order a fourth laptop now…I place
my order and I don’t get a confirmation receipt like I did for the others. I
think okay that’s weird but we’re not going to stress about it. An hour goes by
and I’m waiting to receive an email, still no email. So now I’m just expecting
to receive another email saying gotcha again fool out of stock! A couple of
hours go by, nothing. I thought you know what if it’s not in stock I’m not going
to worry about it, I’ll just wait the 3-6 business days for it to ship and it
will work itself out. I go on my lunch break and ten minutes later I get a
confirmation email that my order is ready for pick up. I share this really long
story to say that we can’t say that we’re giving our problems and situations to
God but also keeping our hands all up and in it. This reminded me of when I
first started driving and my mom would hold the steering wheel from the
passenger seat! We say we’re letting Jesus take the wheel but it’s really like
we just want Him to be in control of the gas and the breaks but we still want
to take control of the direction that we’re going by holding on, tightly might
I add, to the steering wheel. At some point we have to let go of trying to
figure out on our own and learn how to take it to God first. No matter how big
or small it may seem, take it to God first. When we try to figure it out
ourselves it’s like saying to God that we have more faith in ourselves than we
do Him. We trust ourselves more than we trust Him to take care of us and to fix
it. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Proverbs 3:5-6 says trust in the Lord with all your
heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
Him and He will direct your paths. Go to Him first and allow Him to be
the director of your life as you take the backseat.
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Sooo needed this. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis was confirmation from the Holy Spirit to me. I was all in my feelings this morning too. I was thinking about my problems and getting angrier by the second. I started thinking about which of my spiritual mentors I wanted to talk with about it, I went on IG fooling around, went on Youtube and fooled around, started listening to music, and played around on the internet until the Holy Spirit spoke to me about going to His word and laying at His feet. Just like you I was running through my solutions, but then I came up with distractions because I didn't like my solutions,lol.
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