When The Rubber Meets The Road... You'll Know You're Ready

"She needs to be loved beyond her failure, by someone who understands how profoundly changed they are because God loved them that same way."

This is real life.Where rubber meets the road.

God has also said to me repeatedly, and at varios times 'let your light so shine before men...'

Didn't really get it. But now maybe it's becoming clear.

I need to live what I've learned, live who I've become. And I need to do it out loud and in color.

It's no good to learn God's truth - to have a personal revelatory and experiential understanding of Truth - and then to hide it under a bushel until it's 'safe' to put it on display.

The time when truth most matters is when it's pitch black around you. That's when it's most clearly evidenced. That's when you know how bright and strong and real it really is. Not in the light when all  u gotta do is breathe and everything seems all sunshine-y and beautiful.

There's something about darkness that forces you to search for that switch. Frantically. Unrelentingly. Until you find it. Because if you dont find it, it'll take you FOREVER to find your way outta that room!

Simple enough, right?

Except that this light is internal and in order for it to shine,  you have to choose to let that switch (that is faith) come on and take center stage.

The more you use it, the brighter it gets. Just like a muscle. When u exercise it, it gets stronger and stronger.

"Rosheeda, let your light so shine..."

Don't talk about it, be about it. Anybody can talk a good game. But real faith puts the rubber to the road.

It allows itself to mature and to breathe the breath that gives it fresh life and deep roots.

This is character-strengthening and heart-tranforming. This whole process. That's what it's been about.This whole journey. All this work and all this pain.

I'm watching it collide in this space in time. God told me it would be this way, that in one colossal set of events I'd know I was ready for what He's asking. I see it now. I see it in the last few days of hashing all this out and just letting Him speak to my heart. That post last night. I'm realizing the truth of what He's done - what He's doing. The privilege that He's giving me by allowing me to play such an intimate intricate role in someone else realizing God's love for them and His desire to give them abundance.

I get it. 

I'm ready. 

I'm not thrilled about how it's gone down or how it's come to light, but really. As much as this kinda responsibility has always unsettled me, I know now that God made me for this. He knew what He wanted of me and for me before the foundations of time. He knew how i'd feel and what it'd take. He knew the stress it would bring and the war it would raise inside me. And He knew that at the end of the day, I'd do it because He asked. He knew I'd do it with my all and in spite of my fears and doubts. He knew how it would look and how it would end. He knows. 

If I or we weren't ready for all of this, He wouldn't have appointed it to come pass at this time in my life or H's. This is not about him or me. It's about what God wants to do and the part He's asking me to play.  

I am ready. H is ready. That we are making our way thru this road of MUD and still somehow holding tight to eachother and pushing for dear life to see this thru, it proves that.

He's called us for such a time as this.  He's called ME for such a time as this.

God ordained this season in my life and our relationship and He is not clueless. He's in control. Was at the start and is at this very moment.

He knew. He knows.

It's really time for me to believe Him and let my faith live so that we can make our way outta this darkness and into the light of a beautiful brand new day and way of life.

I dunno who, but I'm sure that there's at least one other someone on the face of the earth who has followed God this way and paid a high price up-front but the end result was beyond their wildest dreams. They didn't get there by bemoaning the sacrifice. They got there by accepting it and believing God enough to obey, trusting Him enough to press into Him, and knowing Him well enough to know when to rely solely on His voice and nothing/noone else's.

They let everything they had learned in the shelter of His wings surface when it was time to let the rubber meet the road.

They were willing to be a beacon of light even though the may or may not have felt 'ready' to walk in the call to shine.

So then. I guess it's time that I act like I know who God is. Little by little... Maybe I'm finally making some headway in all this....