Don't show up covered in sand

​When we ask God to bring something into our lives, we don't lock the door and stand in his way of delivering it. But when God wants to remove things from our lives that might be standing in our way of his delivery, we often fight like hell to keep him from removing them.

I've come to realize that is true about me. Even if less frequently than the old me, it's still me.

I have too often looked to God as the great deliverer. But maybe for some people, like me, God needs to be seen more as the great remover.

I've spent a lot of my life thinking my struggles are about things that are missing in my life, when in reality God has been trying to show me my struggles are tied to things that need to GO missing.

I find myself reflecting this morning on trips to a local shore with the boys hunting for sharks' teeth. We'd take these little sifters, scoop up a load of sand, and then shake it and bounce it until the sand that was standing in our way of seeing the teeth was all gone.

Have you ever wondered if there are things in us that God knows are there but we can't see them because we're too covered with sand? And that all the struggles and trials we are facing is simply God shaking us and bouncing us to remove enough of that sand so that we can see in our lives what he sees in them?

We are so used to packing for trips to the places we want to go in life that it's hard for us to imagine a God who is begging us to unpack for the places HE wants us to go. And so we end up in this battle, God trying to take things out of our luggage while we battle to put it right back in.

I've worked hard the last few years to shift my attitude about struggle. I've shifted the questions I ask God when it comes to me feeling like I'm not where I think I should be, the feeling that I'm not where God needs me to be.

In the middle of struggle, I'm better now at asking God what he's trying to work out of me instead of asking him for what I think he needs to give me to remove the struggle.

In the middle of struggle, I'm better now at knowing that what's often standing in my way isn't what's missing, it's what needs to GO missing.

Sometimes struggle can feel like God doesn't want me to go where I think I need to go. The reality is, it might just be God not wanting us to show up covered in sand when we get there.

Sometimes struggle is simply us fighting God in the sifting process.

Let go.

Let God sift.

Let the sand sift away and unveil the beauty God is fighting to bring you into.