There have been so many things that I have wanted to write about. My absence in posting for the past several weeks has been due—to a large degree—to the fact that I have been working two fulltime jobs in an effort to satisfy a budget figure that I established as necessary to take care of the family. The result hasn’t been pleasing to my established budget, my health nor the success of my employment. Changes are afoot; but change is hard—even those so recently established. The issues are trust and control. The income from my new employment is far short of the budget that I established in order to take care of the family. This prompted the need for a second income to offset the difference; which is a commissioned sales position. This position carries the possibility of making up the difference without spending a hundred hours working at it. This is where the trust issue comes into play. The result of the past several weeks has meant that I have endangered my primary employment—which is certainly not good. I will speak more about that later. The trust issue is letting go of the secondary position knowing that the income it provides falls way short of the budget that I established. Here is my challenge. I have been here before. I have lived under a budget short fall trusting the Lord to make up the difference; which he has. The problem is that I was not happy with the way in which he made up the difference. This brings into play the control issue. There is an old saying that goes something like, “another time around the mountain.” I suppose you could say that I resemble that remark; only the circumstances are more difficult this time around. There is another saying that I heard a number of years ago, that I have endeavored to live my life by since hearing it—get ready for some irony. The saying goes like this, “resting in His trust.” I would have to say that it is easy to rest in his trust when you have no other option. I will also say that I am an example of how “not” to rest in his trust when options are available. Allow me to explain it this way. In the absence of options I trusted that the Father was in control of our situation. Someone once said that our lives are “father-filtered,” and I bought into that—at least to a degree. However once options appear, the subtly of the options play with your (at least in my case) logic that this must be an avenue of provision; after all, it will help me meet my established budget. I would hope that you are screaming at me through the screen the obvious answer to this dilemma. Let me explain. As I opened this post, my eyes fell upon the blog that set this current portion of the journey in motion—the unexpected journey: a path to manhood. The journey was patterned after the movie the Hobbit taking us to Lonely Mountain. As I read that it struck cords of somber conviction in my heart. While resting in His trust was relatively easy as long as there were no other options, the options revealed an all too familiar pattern in my life. I call it, “Thank you Father, I’ve got it from here!” In other words, now that the Lord has shown me a path, I can take it from here—control! I will establish a budget that I need to take care of the family. I will work here and here so that I can get us on the path that I see before us. Here is the challenge. There is nothing wrong with what I have just said. Logically speaking it makes perfect sense. However, IF I am not my own, but have been bought with the price of the shed blood of the lamb, then I have surrendered that logic to the will of the Father. This means that His ways and thoughts are not to be compared with mine. It means that His ways and thoughts are set to accomplish an eternal purpose rather than a temporal one. There are so many things to be said in this. This does NOT mean that I am to live my life void of thoughts, feelings or desires. It does mean that I have made a decision to surrender my life—including my thoughts, feelings and desires—to the God of all creation because I trust that he has my best interest at heart. At any point in this process I am entitled to change my mind and take back control—which is what I had done. For me, the difference is that I did not want to take back that control. If that were my intension the Holy Spirit would have only pricked my heart to reconsider. In this case the Holy Spirit took it to the next level by convicting me that I had taken control thus allowing me to decide; is this something I want to do or is it something that I mistakenly fell into? This is the beauty of the godhead. The loving Father who sent his “willing-to-participate” Son to be the sacrifice that restored mankind the right to be with the Father, who then sent the Holy Spirit to guide mankind along the way in our journey to the Father. I have taken far too much space for one post. I will continue this next week. Blessings on you.