tutored by disappointments

I don't think we've ever been in a season of learning so much in our lives.

It is getting hard for us to complain about the hardness of this season when He finally has the space  to speak His convicting truth over us so well and so faithfully and so powerfully.

We've gotten a lot more self-worth from places other than Him than we realized. We've been depending a lot more on ourselves than on Him than we knew. We've been working off our own strength, we've been working to please other than Him more than Him, we've been pushing to do it ALL for Him instead of doing just what He's asking. We've been content with a lot of "survival" places, been willing to sacrifice lots of His best in the name of serving Him, we've been boundary-less for His glory, and are suddenly aware that boundaries would bring Him far more.

The darkness of these days of not being able to move one more step have threatened to feel hopeless, but instead I am already seeing that He is the King of our collapse. 

Unmask all false hopes, that our one true hope might shine out unclouded and undimmed.

Let us be tutored by these disappointments, let us listen to their holy whisper, that we might release at last these lesser dreams, that we might embrace the better dreams you dream for us, and for your people, and for your kingdom. 

Let us join ourselves to these, investing all hope in the One Hope that will never come undone or betray those who place their trust in it. Teach us to hope, O Lord, always and only in You.

Take our dreams--these husks, these chaffs of our desire--and give them back reformed and remade according to your better vision, or do not give them back at all. Here in the ruins of our wrecked expectations, let us make this best confession: 

Not our dreams, O Lord. Not our dreams, but yours, be done. 

Let these disappointments do their work.

SO grateful for your love and prayers, not for what we do but for who we are in Him. 

He's not finished, by His grace.