Are you stuck?

 There are times in life where we feel stuck. It's not always a situation we are aware of. Most of the time we have fallen into habits or routines that have led us down a road we don't know how to branch off of.

We end up stuck in a moment that keeps us hostage. It may have been grief over a lost loved one. We may be waiting for the job that will finally allow us to break out of poverty. We might be waiting for a relationship progress from dating to engagement. Or engagement to marriage. We might still be waiting for a marriage to feel like a family with the addition of children. Each of us is always waiting for the next thing. Or for the situation we are in to end. We find ourselves in the not so great place of wanting to move on, but not sure how to do just that. 

I don't know about you, but my first reaction is to be like the character Saka from Avatar: The Last Airbender: 

via GIPHY

I want to do whatever it takes not to stay where I am. So I hack at the situation until I'm exhausted. Yet still unable to move forward. Instead of leaning toward God and asking "What can I learn here?" I keep trying to find solutions out of the tough place. Then, like in quicksand, I become more and more overwhelmed with whatever I'm trying to run out from. I don't want to deal with the difficulty of remaining still. When we stop trying to fix our problems on our own, we get to experience the full power of our Rescuer. 

Inaction often feels like failure. Like we are not doing enough. In a world that tells us to keep our heads down and keep moving, to sit still is revolutionary. That is exactly what our Lord calls us to do. When we are mired in the quicksand of life, it is there we must remain still. In stillness, we have space to remember what God has done for us and others. Psalm 102:18 says "Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord."

Have you ever thought about that? That what you are going through is to help someone else on their journey? Someone who may not even be born. Maybe when we are stuck, we are to take time to remember what God has already done in our lives. Resting on that to give us the endurance to persevere

in the waiting. So we might encourage others on their journey. If we believe Romans 8:28, that God does indeed work all things for the good of those who love Him, than we can also believe that nothing we go through is in vain. Even when it feels like we are stuck. 

The waiting brings stillness, it's in the stillness that we can know God better.