February 27, 2001
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways.
Isaiah 55:8
I am amazed and comforted by God's wisdom. Exactly opposite to the wisdom of the world and of many things I'd built my life on and some that seem to make perfect sense to me at times. I still remember the day I realized that the way to protect my heart was to lay it wide open before God and people I could trust. What a concept! Completely opposite to everything I'd learned my entire life. All the walls and defenses didn't protect my heart they only kept me from the help and healing that were available by opening up my heart.
In the last few days, weeks I've been thinking about being in the battle and over time have come to realize that the safest place is in the middle or thick of the battle. Another amazing concept so different from the wisdom of the world. Sometimes I want to pull back and out because it's dangerous and hurts so much. Being in the thick of battle carries with it great risk - we can be hurt and gravely so, but isolating ourselves, pulling out of, or away from, the battle isn't a safe place. It's the more dangerous or vulnerable place to be. When we're on the edge of battle we are alone, vulnerable and very susceptible to our enemy, we are easy prey with little to no defense. Though it's opposite to what we may naturally think the midst of battle is safest place because...
This knowledge doesn't make it easy to be 'in the battle' but it makes it easier. It's where God wants me because then he can protect me, he can work in my life and in my circumstances. If I pull away I limit what God is able to do.