“Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.”
Luke 15:4
Think back with me to Acts 9 when Saul was journeying to Damascus to continue his campaign of killing Christians. A light stopped him, in the middle of nowhere, and there began his conversion. Saul thought that what he was doing was right and he did it with great conviction. But an encounter with God in the middle of nowhere allowed him to find himself and who he was to become: one of the most prolific writers of the Gospel and one of the ones responsible for the foundations of what we believe as Christians. He was on a trip to capture Christians and take them back to Jerusalem for trial; instead, God captured his attention and used him mightily for the faith.
Back in 2011, I relocated almost 1000 miles away from the home that I knew to another place due to my husband’s career. I left everything familiar behind: family, friends, places, experiences, etc. and instead had to acclimate myself to a completely new environment. I sincerely felt that I was in the middle of nowhere and I was very unhappy. It was then that I came across what is now a very familiar cliché: “Bloom where you are planted.” So I began to embrace my new home and asked God to give me the grace to learn to love it. I became immersed in a network of like-minded women who were in the same profession as I. I became more involved in my church. I began to seek opportunities to get to know my new home. Before I knew it, while I still struggled in some aspects of my life, I began to develop into the person I know that God wanted me to be; Him allowing me to be brought to a different place simply made the process more seamless.
God is always seeking our heart. It’s the only thing that He wants from us. In Luke 15:4, Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep: “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” It is common to veer off course and end up in a place where we didn’t intend, and the grace of God is always there to bring us to ourselves, to realize where we are and where we should be.
There are moments when we are responsible for holding ourselves captive, for “kicking against the pricks” and not letting ourselves experience the freedom of letting go. In allowing ourselves to experience whatever happens to us- whether good or bad- we also can experience God’s grace to endure it. And therein also lies peace. Captivity isn’t always a state of mind; sometimes it’s a state of being and we are the only ones who can secure our release.
Prayer for Release: Lord God, because of Your Son Jesus, I am always found in You. Thank You for always seeking me out and for never giving up on me. Thank You for the grace that covers me and my circumstances and frees me from a life outside of You.