God Complex

I’m not sure I have the correct title of the position on a football team right, but I think if I played I would have probably been a guard, probably a nose guard.  Why?  So glad you asked!

For most of the past year I’ve been running interference for God, but today realized it wasn’t for God, it was in place of God.  This was one of those teachable moments for me…you know an aha moment as Oprah calls them.

I have a huge heart, which can be both a good and bad thing, depending on the circumstances.  In the good sense, God gifted me with the desire to help others, in the bad sense when I take on challenges that only God can work through and instead of helping, I get in His way.

I am in His way currently and I realized being here has given me a “God Complex.”  God’s ways are not necessarily our ways and as much as I want to do what is “right” in a given situation, even with the intention of love, the person on the receiving end needs to suffer the bumps and bruises of their situation in order for them to reach bottom.  My “help” is impeding progress because I have an inkling of what I see as the end result, and it scares me!  Not too big of a God complex?!  Geez!  Sometimes you just can’t save someone from going where they are going, especially if they aren’t willing to read the road signs on their own map!

I don’t have the market cornered on hurts, frustration or anger.  There is plenty of it out there and my little bit of help doesn’t make a dent in the big picture of an ongoing battle, in fact it is prolonging the journey.  I keep applying a band aid when surgery is what is required!  We were born into a fallen world, and it is up to each one of us to make the choices necessary to assure the life that God intended for us, in other words it isn’t up to me to guarantee your salvation, I might point you in the direction and offer encouraging words, but you, yes you, are the one who has to do the work.  Sometimes that means you need to be alone to recognize it and even if you are severely incapacitated, God will make a provision for you to be able to work toward Him.  It is the ol’ proverbial statement about being able to lead a horse to water, but not being able to make him drink.

I hate that people have to suffer, but when one abdicates their suffering to another person, they relinquish their lesson and thus are forced to repeat it until THEY learn it.  Isn’t like a parent doing their child’s homework, so that they get a good grade?  What did the child learn from that?  Ok, I’ll admit I did a project WITH them now and again….oh what we learn in hindsight!

Our identities should not be based on our performance, or our kids’ performance, nor should it be based on our mistakes, because not only will we make occasional mistakes, we need those mistakes to help us learn and thus grow.

So, it is in hindsight that I recognize my position as the nose guard, because I have been in God’s face protecting someone, instead of allowing God to do His work, which is always perfect, even when it doesn’t seem like it to me!

Some lessons are just more difficult to learn than others, I’ll be on the sidelines encouraging you, I wish you better days ahead, see you on the flipside!

Looking up!~ Barb