[Psalm 23:3]
So about like half an hour ago, I read that I got rejected from the Design course I applied to.
Normally I'd react by wondering why I wasn't accepted. All the different possibilities and the reasons to blame myself that I wasn't good enough.
Like in my mind, I'd be thinking "Oh, if only I had put in my graphics work from this year in my portfolio, put in more of my year 13 work, handed in right the first time, had all my legal documents in the first time they asked me..." etc etc.
But today...I've been having an odd, but quite amazing morning.
I woke up at 8:30am today and have been reading this book called "When God Writes Your Love Story" by Eric and Leslie Ludy. Its all about what it means to have a romantic relationship with someone, and to have a relationship with God. I'm reading through the book quite slowly cause I keep thinking too much between reading and stuff which kinda annoys me haha.
But anyway, I read for a couple of hours (for a couple of chapters, which are like 14-15 pages long. It shouldn't take an hour to read one chapter...but anyway) and then with this book in mind, I was asking God as I was brushing my teeth what the path is gonna be for my life, whether I'm taking the right steps in my relationship with him and the relationship with my current boyfriend.
And then God challenged me something. It's not the first time he's challenging me this, but I think now if I put it out in the open I really have to follow through.
But I feel that God is challenging me "You spend a lot of time talking with your boyfriend. Are you spending more time talking to him than me?"
When you get questions like that, they do scare you. Its the slap-in-the-face of truth.
But anyway, getting out of the shower, I'm like to God "Okay God, I know I need to build a stronger relationship with God. I need to spend time with you more." And then I got out my daily devotional "Word for Today" booklet, and my bible.
In these "Word For Today" booklets, they have these things called "Soulfood" where they'd give you passages of the bible to read so that way you have a focus on what to read (and when you read a whole year's worth, you would have supposedly read the whole bible.) Anyway, one of the Psalm passages to read today was Psalm 23.
I love the Psalms. They're like amazing songs and lyrical poetry to me.
Psalm 23 is about how "the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I have through him."
I was kinda scanning through the passage while checking my emails. I stop when I find an email from the university, and as I read through their message, I'm like choking in rejection.
I thought it was possible I was gonna start crying and asking myself why I'm falling into rejection again, scared that I was gonna fall into the same pattern I fell into at the end of last year/beginning of this year with all the depression and loneliness I felt at the time from all the rejection letters I had gotten.
Yeah, it was a messy time.
But I look that next to my laptop is still my bible, open on Psalm 23.
And so instead of thinking about all that, I read Psalm 23. Really reading it. And then I realise this was God's message to me. While I was applying for these two degrees at this university, I told God "I can't choose between the two. I'm gonna let you choose for me what's right."
This is God telling me right now.
He's telling me that I shouldn't bother with this degree at this uni. "You prepare a banquet for me....you welcome me as an hounoured guest and fill my cup to the brim" [Psalm 23:5]
And then I'm like "What the HECK am I freaking about? I told God to do this for me, and hey, he's done it all quickly so it's easier and that way I don't have to apply for that Arts and Design scholarship degree. Meaning less paper work!"
Suddenly I'm seeing all the positives that come out of this.
"And by not getting this degree here..." (Cause you know, I'm home alone, I'm talking to myself out loud.) "...it means that I could go to my 3rd back up, the local uni's design degree. Which would be so much easier to travel to, which I'm already enrolled at, makes decisions easier."
And then I'm no longer choking. It's so much easier to breathe.
So really - WOW.
God had this all planned out...There's no coincidence in this, I believe it's no coincidence. I was meant to read that passage as I got that letter. I was meant to be reminded that God is in control of my life as long as I'm willing for him to be, and that he's gonna provide the best that is available for me.
Stuff is cool when you think about it that way.
And God is amazing for always sticking by my side.
And I just realised, Jon Foreman's song "House of God Forever" is based on this Psalm. LOL.
Good stuff. :P
