on saying yes, new adventures and being stretched

The trouble with choosing faith instead of fear for 2016, is I am saying ‘yes’, to all sorts of new adventures and ideas. To be clear these are things I would never before dreamed of saying ‘yes’ to. Or I would at least take three weeks to agonise over, before hesitantly replying, ‘yes, if you think I’m capable’.

And when you say ‘yes’ to things, good things, they grow. Before you know it you are a little overwhelmed by how big that little ‘yes’ became. Not in workload, but in size, (sometimes in workload too!)

For most of this year I have not been able to shift out of Isaiah 54 and 55. It’s like a homing device, every time I open my bible, I find myself there. So I know these words well:

Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.

A couple of years ago, I did a close study on this verse looking at the words used across three different translations.

clear ground; enlarge; make tents large; stretch; spread out; spare not; don’t hold back; think big; lengthen; drive deep; strengthen.

This verse seems pretty clear doesn’t it. It’s all about clearing out the old to make space for the new, and how the new will stretch you.

Yet, I’m surprised. The new is good, the new is great in fact. The new is amazing, and astounding, and wonderful.

And hard, oh so hard. It is stretching me.

I am stretched so tight that, if I am the canvas of a tent, I am about to ping off the tent peg and collapse.

The key to surviving this stretching is also in this verse, ‘drive deep’ and ‘strengthen’.

I am choosing faith this year, but that is not just a word for me, that is a relationship. I know in whom I trust, where my strength comes from.

I am quietly freaking out right here, but I am also driving deep and allowing the stretch, because I trust Him who asks that of me.

Join me for the journey,

Jodie