I thought I had kept my resentment over the restrictions of my life well hidden.
During a Q&A time at one of my recent speaking engagements, a woman asked how I felt about the restrictions behind not being able to drive.
“I’m an independent person,” she said. “I’m sitting here thinking I get to choose when I go places. If I need to pick up something at Target, I get in my car and do it. But you have to coordinate with someone to do anything. Maybe . . .” her voice trailed off. “since you’ve had poor vision all your life, you’re used to it?”
She touched my tender spot. Not hardly.
I admitted the truth. Of all things that I struggle with as a visually impaired person, my inability to drive is the most frustrating. To this day, I still have my “I wish I could drive” days. I make jokes about driving but beneath it all is the “oh, I wish I could.”
Whether it’s going to Target to pick up a personal item, getting a haircut, or getting to a speaking event. I have to ask someone else to be involved and coordinate with their time schedule. And I find it so hard to ask. I don’t like having to coordinate two schedules instead of only one. At times, I resent that I must depend on others and God every time I want to step outside my neighborhood.
I’m sure I’m not unique. All of us, every single one of us, face restrictions that rub our emotions raw. You might be a mom with toddlers and you must take those kiddos with you every time you want to go to Target. As a care giver, you can’t even leave your person to go to Target. You’re in a workplace, trapped with people that aren’t your type and who don’t share your values. A long-ago ankle injury prohibits you from doing the sports you love.
When you face restrictions, it’s so easy for resentment to lurk at the edge of every life decision.
Resentment, the Bible tells me, is a form of envy. Instead of trusting God to provide what we need, we wish we had what others have. We wish we didn’t have to work for what comes so easily for them. What we don’t realize is that God has such a wonderful replacement package waiting for us if we would just trust Him.
God invites us to recalibrate our thinking
God has specialized plans for each of us. He doesn’t want to give us what everyone else has. He has put together a customized treasure trove, specially choreographed, gift-wrapped, and tagged with our name on the package. While others have their own car keys, I have chauffeurs! I have opportunities for new friendships and a front row seat to watch God work all things together for good. I see Him as the producer of my story and the orchestrator of my ministry. And boy, does He give me stories to tell!
Back to my speaking event. I pointed across the room to the woman who had driven me to that morning’s event. I shared how she and I had spent 45 minutes in delightful conversation. If I’d been like any other person and driven myself, she and I would have missed out on those rich moments of fellowship. That’s true every time I get in the car. I share the space with someone else and I get to make that time count for the glory of God.
Here’s how I’ve learned to move from resentment to trust.
First, I learned to pray that God would provide the rides. It would have so easy to just sit at home and not try or to become stressed as I tried to find rides on my own. But when I started to talk to God about my need, His answers showed His care for me in some rather creative ways. Once, my transportation for a writer’s conference included five different vehicles. You’d think I was trying to best Phileas Fogg in Jules Vern’s “Around the World in 80 Days!” Talking to God about my need taught me to depend on Him rather than others or my own ingenuity.
Now, as I’ve learned to see the world with fresh eyes, I’ve fined tuned my transportation prayers even more. Instead of begging God like an impatient teenager, “God I need a ride,” I remember those precious car rides with old and new friends. I’ve started to ask, “Lord, who do you want me to spend time with in a car?” When I ask that question, everything changes. A simple car ride takes on eternal value and builds enduring friendships.
As impossible as it seems, your lack is actually a hole waiting to be filled to overflowing with God’s treasures. Turn your prayer that insists that God answers according to the way you think it should be done into questions: “Lord how do you want me to deal with this? Who do You want me to see? How can we use this restraint for your glory?
- How did the apostle Paul spend his time in prison? Writing letters to churches!
- How did Jesus use the intrusion of an annoying crowd on His vacation? He fed five thousand families with one boy’s lunch, the only miracle recorded in all four gospels.
Think about this. If we didn’t have a lack or restraint in the first place, we wouldn’t have a reason to ask God for his help and we wouldn’t get the chance to see His answers—to experience His divine one-of-a-kind solution. When we don’t have all that we want or think we need, we provide God a perfect opportunity to fill the void with blessings that could only come from Him.
He asks us to trust Him. To partner with Him. To pause and ask, “Lord how would You like to see this resolved?”
When we ask for His wisdom, He promises to answer—generously!
If you are new to my blog, you might want to check out my book, With Fresh Eyes: 60 Insights into the Miraculously Ordinary from a Woman Born Blind where I share what God led to me to discover with brand new vision after being legally blind for the first fifty years of life.
What can we discover about God through the sounds we hear? Preorder my brand new book, With Open Ears: 60 Reflections on the Wonder of Sound from a Woman Born Blind.
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