When God Doesn't Choose You
It’s one thing to feel overlooked or not chosen by people, but it’s confusing and painful feeling overlooked by God. He’s the one who’s never supposed to let us down. So how do we deal with it when it seems that God doesn’t see us?
Until recently, I thought I understood the way God operates and how to be in His favor. A series of closed doors or “not yets” have led me to ask a new level of tough questions.
You know the certainty you feel when God tells you what to dream for? What to believe for? What to pray about, plan and hope for? That part is clear.
But the long, winding road leading to the calling can make it blurry.
Questions flood in like: “What am I doing? Did I do something wrong? Why am I not ready? Am I unfit? Did I hear wrong? Am I not on the right path? Did I make this all up? Is it just my desire and not God’s? What am I missing?"
I had some deep, beautiful conversations about this topic that provided some clarity and I hope this helps you in this crazy journey.
Coveting Vs. Believing
There is an important difference. It is true that God won’t elevate us or give us something we aren’t ready for. Most of the time, we don’t know we’re not ready or we don’t know why. The Lord wants pure hearts. Getting and maintaining a pure heart is a daily intention, but there’s a way we can check to see if our motives are pure or we are spiritually mature.
How do you feel when someone gets what you want?
Jealousy, bitterness, resentment, self-pity may indicate that either our motivation for wanting it was wrong or we aren’t spiritually mature enough to handle the dream yet. Until we can get to the place that someone else’s success doesn’t equate to our failure, we are still teetering in the covet zone. Coveting is wanting something that isn’t yours and it breeds those feelings are bitterness.
Believing for something God put on your heart is trusting that He will bring it to pass in the way He wants to when He wants to. It’s also having the humility to understand our purpose isn’t for our personal elevation, rather for the promotion of the Kingdom.
God protects us from ourselves until we are ready.
Sustaining Hope vs. Abundant Hope
Many Christians believe God is going to bring them whatever He wants to, so they sit and wait for it. They are passive and lazy in the name of “God’s will.” I believe it’s also a form of protecting ourselves from the pain of a dashed hope.
You may have heard someone quote the verse, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” when they are sad. So do we use that as an excuse to be sullen and bitter until we get what we want?
I believe the problem lies in the kind of hope we think we are entitled to. The only real hope we are 100% promised is eternal life. But Jesus also says he came to offer abundant life to the full.
My friend Nate Scoggins wisely said there are two types of hope; sustaining hope which is like our daily manna and abundant hope which is more than you ask or imagine.
The key is not letting the abundant hope replace relationship with God.
“You must worship no other gods, for the LORD, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you”. Exodus 34:14
Proverbs 16:9 shows us that, God gives us the vision, we make the plans but God directs our steps.
That sounds really great in theory, until God starts directing our steps in real life. They can be slow, feel like detours and be in the form of rejection. But like Joyce Meyer says, “God has to do something to you before he can do something through you”.
Keep a loose grip on that dream, let God sift through you, go before you, protect you and comfort you.
Kristen Dalton
Kristen Dalton Wolfe is a former Miss USA turned Mrs. Wolfe. Since then, Kristen has used her passion for women and background in Psychology to launch SheisMore.com. Kristen and her husband, Kris Wolfe, founder of GoodGuySwag.com are based in Los Angeles and speak regularly. Kristen is also the author of Rise Up, Princess: 60 Days To Revealing Her Royal Identity and Rise Up With God: The Guided Journal.
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