In the Gray

This semester, my friends and I are working through Beth Moore's study of James. In the homework portion of the study a few days ago, she asked us to describe a current hardship in our lives in two colors. 

If you're anything like me, then questions like this make you stress out because there's no right answer. 

After thinking about it for quite some time, I finally wrote this down: 

Gray & dark gray, because my current hardships leave me feeling as though I'm in a dense fog. 

After answering the question I realized the hardships (trials, difficult situations... whatever you want to call them) I'm facing aren't your usual hanging-by-a-thread type of circumstances. 

They are the slow and steady problems that require more of a tortoise, rather than hare, approach. 

The kind that are, unfortunately, easy to ignore. 

Because sometimes it would just be easier to sit in the fog and not make decisions and allow others to shape your life instead of asking God for the wisdom to let Him shape you. 

And here's the danger of these types of trials: The enemy can shroud what's at stake in complacency. The fog only clears enough to show relationships that have grown cold, opportunities missed, and battles that have been lost because I didn't know they were being fought. 

Then, today, in the homework of this Bible study on James, who maybe not so ironically instructs on how to ask for wisdom and what kind of wisdom to ask for, I read this: 

"We need authentic leadership of the Spirit in areas that aren't black and white." 

How fitting it is of a good God to ask us to keep following, in the gray. Training us to hear and respond to the Spirit's voice only. 

Because life on earth will never be without hardship, and a good Father would  train His children to remember His words and listen for His voice in the midst of it; rather than leaving them unprepared and  without mooring. 

So I ask God for the wisdom that rings deeper & truer than the words of man. I ask Him for the wisdom to do what is needed, to be faithful to the Spirit's leading and the discernment to know His voice when I hear it. And I realize this is for my own sake as much as anyone else's. 

And I eagerly wait to not only experience the goodness of a Father who's voice brings everything needed, but the glory of a God who makes Himself known in the grayest of circumstances.