living the questions.

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves … And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
--Rainer Maria Rilke via Melissa Fitzpatrick's tumblr.

 

The Lord is teaching me about patience... about questions... about the beautiful mystery... about listening. I claim I can't hear His voice, but I won't stop talking myself.
I suppose the hardest part in all of this, is the 'perhaps'.  Because, yes, the answer will most likely come, but before it does... that seven letter word is our dwelling place...

PERHAPS.

We think that we know what is best. Trust in the midst of the perhaps of our mind's wanderings, Beloved. In this dwelling place of perhaps that I find myself in, whether good or bad in and of itself, the best place to flee? Where I hear His voice.

 “...The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” --John 10:2-5

It's hard to lean in & listen. If you take note of all the situations He is moving in... every gift He blesses us with... joy will be your daily in-the-trenches song. It's not anything close to easy. The questions will be hard to live. Your heart will be on the edge of it's seat.

But is there any place a believer would rather be?

Leaning in on His promises, believing Him with every ounce of our being, waiting at His feet...

Why would we want to be anywhere else? Sure-- I would love all the answers, but I was once told that getting something you want rarely creates the character you need to receive it & that we shall enjoy the mystery.

So, why not live the questions?

Why not thank God for them?

Why not ask Him to NOT stop the madness?

Why not praise God for pain & confusion?

I would rather be near to Him & in the 'land of perhaps' over being resistant towards Him & have all the answers in my lap.

So, I'm gonna praise Him for all of these gifts in disguise. The grief hitting hard, the overwhelming to-do list, the mystery of perhaps... If I'm focused on all these things with a bitter heart my eyes are not on what is unseen. And, if my eyes are on the temporary to live will not be Christ. Why would I tarry there, then? If I'm focused on these things the righteous way, however, living will be Christ.

“Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.” --in A Chance To Die by Elisabeth Elliot; the Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael.
 

Our questions are not any less worthy of our attention when we lay them down in gratefulness; they are just no longer a burden on our already worn & weary shoulders. Lifting them up in prayer is our first step... & the most important one.

Perhaps the answer will not be what we wished it would be, but surely our goal will be achieved:

To walk in His perfect Will, to know Him, to perservere, to love along the way.

 

 

All that is unsolved in our hearts, Lord Jesus, You know. So, let's live the questions. Because, after all, where would we rather be? 

 

 

In Abba,

Emilee