I am a slow learner. It takes time for me to grow in understanding God, His will and His ways, although my slowness doesn’t stop me wrestling to try to understand Him. Nor does it diminish my desire to push Him to make everything plain and clear. But God does not comply. He leaves me with ambiguities, as I struggle with sadness and loss. Oh, that He would make things clear and write our next steps in the sky. But He refrains, and so much still appears unknown.

Mark and I talk. There is plenty of chatter, plenty of noise. We talk about God, about His word. We witness and seek to live for Him, but answers to the tangled questions that fill my mind are few and far between. The moment I think I have an answer clear, God comes, scattering my so-called organised thoughts like a gust of wind scattering neatly ordered papers.

God’s way is different to mine. He moves at a different pace to me. Unhurried, He takes His time to form His character in my heart and life. He knows that I do not fully understand Him, yet He has no frustrations with me. Rather He speaks, placing His word in my heart, allowing it to settle then sometimes, at His appointed moment, He brings clarity and understanding to what was hidden to me.

He understands that it takes time to grow up in Him, to learn to live a life characterised by His love, a life that desires to obey Him alone. He also knows that it is away from the noisiness of life and my own confused thoughts that I am more likely to receive Him when He comes. In those moments, when I respond to Him in spontaneous worship, then He can reveal more of His character and truth.

My ‘who?’, ‘where?’, ‘when?’ questions seldom get answered immediately, probably because I have yet to discover that I am not ready for His answer. God is gracious, allowing me to prattle on uninterrupted until, out of breath, I realise He wants me to stop and listen to Him. Even then there are no answers, but my questions take me forward. In asking Him to show me the way, I realise that He is revealing that He is The Way.

I draw closer to God. Our circumstances are unchanged but something in me has changed. I seek to rest in His presence, comfortable not to recognise or understand the next steps because God has given me what I did not, or could not, articulate. He understands my heart far more than I do. He knows what I need above all else. In learning to walk out of my way into His, I experience a growing intimacy with Him more precious than the answer to all my questions.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024