Conduits

Well, as you all know, I'm a big fan of Todd Agnew. I'm telling you-listen to him already! Anyway some folks were discussing an interview he did, and even though I'd planned on posting about how today is my favorite day of the year, I'm going to post my response to the interview because God is really messing in my heart with this one.

The interview:
http://music.thoughtquotient.com/todd_agnew/todd_agnew.htm

Wow... I'll just say that again, and maybe I can start to digest it. Wow.

So Todd is obviously succeeding in being a conduit in my life. *shaking head* God uses so many of his words to minister to me and bring out more "stuff". Half of me wishes I could get more of a regular dose of his teaching, and the other half says, "Whoa, girl, you're going to explode if you hear any more."

The whole conduit thing... wow. I need to say wow again, I think. I am definitely gumming up the conduit with a lot of things I don't need. And chasing after some things that do nothing to clean out the conduit, but things that will only gum it up some more. ICK. I could totally go gross here, but I'll behave. :)

The thing I really loved, though, was how he talked about Abraham. I love the idea of being blessed to be a blessing. Except I realized something as I was reading what Todd had to say. It took until Abram was 86 years old to receive the blessing of a son-Ishmael. And yet, it wasn't God giving him a blessing, but he and Sarai manipulating the conduit to get the blessing they wanted. Because they manipulated it, they didn't get a blessing, but a child who would end up plaguing their blessing until current times. It took 13 years for God to return. It doesn't say in Scripture, so I am totally going off on my own here, but I wonder, were those 13 years spent cleaning things out to be the conduit?

It's interesting to note-every time Abraham decides to put a little of his own into the pipeline-using a substitute for his wife, lying about who his wife is-it gums up the works. But I keep going back to that moment, when God comes back to Abraham after all that time, Abraham responds with obedience, and God says, "okay, now that I've cleaned you out, let me fill you with me. Let me show you how to "keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just"." Then they had this amazing experience where God showed him what he was about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah and allowed him to have an amazing conversation where they walked together in friendship.

Even though when I did the study, I very sincerely thought that I haven't done anything to manipulate things the way Abram and Sarai did, I think what God showed me through Todd's words is that I often do. It took 25 years from the time of the Lord's promise for the son fulfilling the promise to be born. After twelve years, they got impatient. Since we don't know exact dates, this is all assumption on my part, but basically, it took double the time they thought/wanted for them to actually receive God's blessing. I get frustrated after days, weeks, months... wow.

Since Todd mentioned girls, and I know there's some single folk here struggling with the idea of being single, I'll just throw out the manipulation that God is pointing out in my life. I was tired of being single, I was tired of failed relationships, and frankly, my life wasn't falling into the plan that *I* made for myself. I pushed my husband harder into marriage than I should have. We got engaged based on an ultimatum I gave him. For a long time, I felt like in our marriage, I was pushing him on everything. I hated that. It was hard living with the question of wondering why he married me, and if he really loved me, or if he married me to get me to stop nagging him. Thankfully, we got to a point a couple years ago where we were able to talk about it, and I no longer doubt his love for me, or why he married me. I am so blessed by the love we share. I think that if in marrying him, I'd sought the Lord's will and waited on Him, it would have saved us both a lot of heartache. It certainly would have prevented a lot of fights over some really stupid things. Honestly, our marriage didn't get good until I finally said, "okay, Lord, I'm not going to manipulate anymore. What do YOU want from me and what kind of wife should I be?"

I can't stress how hard it is to reconstruct it being married, the idea of working as God's conduit versus trying to make it work on your own. I am so blessed knowing that God gives people more than one opportunity, and am also blessed to be married to an amazing man who can be patient with me as I sort through my gunk and let God clean out that conduit.

So for those of you who are single, I want to encourage you and tell you that it is far better to wait on God, even if it takes 25 or more years. It's worth it. You're worth it. Most importantly, God is worth it.