The older I get, the longer I walk with the Lord, and the more His grace provides me wisdom, I realize more and more that my life is not my own.

Throughout the last 12 years of walking closely with Jesus, many times I have attempted to veer onto a different path than the one the Lord has fashioned for me.

I look back and can see so clearly now that so many times I thought I was coming up against the resistance of the devil and even my own flesh when in actuality, the insane resistance and uneasiness I was feeling was actually from the Lord.

There were of course many times where I WAS in fact coming up against my flesh or the devil and I have had to humbly submit to God and press in for His help. (Which He always brings in one way or another according to His infinite wisdom.)

But more times than I can count, the stark lack of grace, peace or motivation I was bombarded by, were the reins of God pulling me back to HIS path for me.

I stand utterly speechless, grateful and humbled, and in the holy fear of God when I look back at how merciful the Lord has been on me time and time again. The stunning truth is that He has only ever allowed me to venture down the wrong paths for so long before His intervention so obviously blocks the way.

If you had asked me twelve years ago where I thought I would be today, my answer would have been vastly different from the way the Lord has taken me.

The Lord’s ACTUAL path, at times, has honestly caused me to feel a lot of disappointment and disillusionment. But so many times still, God’s plans have surprised me with the most unexpected joys.

I struggle more than I wish I did with the feeling that I have let the Lord down in some way. Where some areas of my life are wonderfully different from where I was 12 years ago, there are areas where I feel so inadequate and weak. Even less than a year ago I was still trying so hard to go forward forcefully onto paths I thought I should be on, and the lack of grace and provision ended up stalling me in my tracks once again.

I have realized in the last six months or so, that for so very many years I thought I needed to be someone else other than the person I am, the person God formed me to be. I felt chronically ashamed of my path, and of my challenges and crosses to bear.

I have so often felt the battles I am actually given the tools to fight are just not progressive enough, that they just don’t take enough ground.

But the Lord has revealed something to me bit by bit over time. The truth is, I am much too focused on the outer things of life.

I am ALWAYS so focused on my DOING rather than on my BEING.

I was conditioned and brainwashed for most of my life by a works-obsessed, ambition motivated culture.

Many times I have been bombarded with very similar messages echoing from pulpits and from well-meaning, but confused Christians, who are trying so hard to please God with their religious works and piety.

Why do we do that so quickly as humans? We so easily veer off course. Just as the Church in Galatia 2000 years ago, we are so easily “bewitched by another Gospel that is really no Gospel at all.” (This false “gospel” of starting out relying on God’s grace for our sanctification to only end up thinking we are sanctified by our own good works instead.)

BUT….then there are those priceless moments in time where the voice of God is so crystal clear. Resounding truths into your heart and mind that you need to hear so badly to be set aright.

It’s as though every knee bows and is humbled into holy silence as the voice of God thunders and speaks. You fall to your knees with your face to the ground humbled and trembling; remembering how holy and good and righteous and just He is.

You are awakened into a startling, fearful kind of holy reverence when the Lord God Almighty speaks. Recollecting anew just how small and feeble and in need of Him you actually are.

And when God speaks to me in moments like these, He quiets my soul with a peace that is so wise and steady and sure. He reminds me once again to look inside and see just a glimpse of how He has transformed me in the secret inner rooms where no eyes see fully into but His own. How His process and journey for me—my life on this earth—is ultimately and primarily about my sanctification and consecration unto Himself.

Someone can be doing a million and one things to impress the world, and their highlight reel can look very shiny, glamorous, successful, thriving and happy. But so often behind the veil, there is a soul that is lost and broken and hurting. The world sees a shiny veneer that is so often curated and deceptive.

The point ISN’T that good works, hard work, success and making a difference in this world is shallow wrong or bad. No, those things in themselves are good things as long as the life living them is right with the Lord and is growing in love, humility and sanctification.

BUT…outward doing is not the ultimate goal of this life. Inner sanctification and purification, being conformed to the image of Christ is the pinnacle. THAT is the most meaningful process.

AND…ultimately our life as Christians is being revealed, it is not built by us. We do not get to decide the path we will go if we choose to walk in the will of the Father for us. We can choose to rebel or resist, but when we are Christs own, He has a mysterious way of pulling us back to Himself time and time again. His roadblocks, deterrents and interventions are stunning examples of the Lord’s mercy, grace, and providence. They display to the Believer that we are not left to ourselves. That the Lord comes after us like the lost sheep. He will often resist, paralyze or deter in the life of the Believer anything that is not the Lord’s best. Or He will let us be so miserable in our sin that the chastisement of our poor choices drives us to our knees until we want nothing more than to run as quickly back to the arms of God as we can.

I may see the portion of my little life as small and the progress I am making too insignificant to mean much. But I am not the Lord and I do not see what He sees and I do not know what He knows. So I am prideful and sinful in my heart when I try to judge the process and path of my life as somehow being “not good enough.” In submission to Christ, there is the easy burden and light yoke of being steered by Him. Being held in the everlasting hand of Christ is the only safe place to dwell.

I am becoming who GOD wants me to be. No matter if I see it or not, what HE is creating, shaping and molding in me in His holy work at hand, it is not my own.

It is a comforting and humbling reality that we don’t have to know or comprehend the “whys” and “whens” and “whats.”

We are being guided along providentially and sovereignly by our Creator who loves us and came and laid down His life as a sacrifice for us.

The cross shows the unfathomable love and mercy of Christ for us.

And so we must pick up our cross daily by accepting GOD’S will being done, and not our own.

We must accept thorns in our side put there by God Himself in His wisdom and embrace the holy fire that comes to consecrate and purify our souls.

We must discover our life as a book being read. An epic story already written by the One who made us for Himself. It is epic because HE has made it and purposed it.

WE are here for God and God alone. THAT is the most important revelation we will ever get.

REST in Christ’s Sovereignty.

In beauty and in pain, In suffering and in joy, it is ALL for our good and for His glory.

So no matter how small and slow and insignificant our journey seems to be, it is right and it is good and it is all we really need.