Help Me, I’m Poor… in Discernment

I have spent entirely too much time asking God to change circumstances that were actually revealing something He wanted to change in me.

That realization was rude.

Because sometimes I am not waiting on God.

God is waiting on me to loosen my grip.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the advice of the LORD will stand.”

I have read that verse before. I believed it. Probably highlighted it. Might have even underlined it twice for emphasis.

Meanwhile, I had plans written in permanent marker.

Plans for my career. Plans for relationships. Plans for how quickly things should happen. Plans for what my life should look like. Plans for what I thought I deserved after everything I had already survived.

Then there are the plans I didn’t even realize I had until God disrupted them.

Those are the sneaky ones.

“I should be further by now.”

“I should have gotten that opportunity.”

“They shouldn’t have gotten it before me.”

“My life should have looked different.”

“God should have done this differently.”

That last one has lived somewhere inside me for a long time.

My father died when I was two. I never got the opportunity to know him, and there have been seasons when I was genuinely angry with God for allowing that to be part of my story.

Then I would hear friends complain about their fathers.

“My dad gets on my nerves.”

“We got into another argument.”

“He keeps calling me.”

And internally I would think, “Do you have ANY idea how blessed you are?”

Except if I’m being painfully truthful, sometimes what I really meant was:

“You don’t deserve what I wanted.”

Whew.

Grief had quietly turned into entitlement.

Because somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that because I would have appreciated what somebody else had differently, I was more deserving of it.

Comparison will have me auditing blessings God never assigned me to manage.

I’ve done it at work too.

Someone gets promoted. Somebody gets paid more. Somebody receives an opportunity I wanted.

Suddenly my internal HR department is fully staffed.

“Well, I’ve been here longer.”

“I know I do more.”

“I have more experience.”

“I know what I bring to the table.”

I’ve got exhibits. Witnesses. Performance reviews. Possibly a PowerPoint.

Some of those observations might even be true.

That still doesn’t mean I know what God is doing.

Sometimes my frustration isn’t that God hasn’t been good to me.

It’s that He has been good to somebody else differently.

Then I got to 1 Samuel 8.

And Lord.

Israel wanted a king.

God had already established leadership for them, but they looked around at the surrounding nations and decided what they had wasn’t enough anymore.

They wanted what everybody else had.

Samuel warned them.

God told them exactly what this king would cost them. He would take their sons, daughters, fields, vineyards, servants and flocks.

God basically handed them the terms and conditions before they clicked “I agree.”

Israel’s response?

“No.”

That is literally how 1 Samuel 8:19 begins.

They refused to listen.

“We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations.” (1 Samuel 8:19–20)

There it is.

They weren’t dissatisfied because God had stopped being faithful.

They were dissatisfied because His provision didn’t look like everybody else’s.

And that hit me.

Because how many times have I looked at what God gave me and decided it wasn’t enough because somebody else had something different?

Different childhood.

Different family.

Different career.

Different salary.

Different relationship.

Different opportunity.

Different timeline.

Which brings me to Bridesmaids.

Because Annie’s problem wasn’t really Helen.

Annie was already hurting.

Her bakery had failed. Her relationship situation was a disaster. She was struggling financially. She felt stuck. Then here comes Helen with money, connections, confidence, beautiful parties and seemingly unlimited resources.

Suddenly Annie isn’t simply celebrating Lillian anymore.

She is measuring herself against Helen.

Who knows Lillian better?

Who gives the better speech?

Who plans the better party?

Who can afford the better experience?

Who gets to be closest to her?

Helen became the physical representation of everything Annie thought she lacked.

And the more threatened Annie felt, the more desperate she became.

The more desperate she became, the more she tried to control.

The more she tried to control…

Girl.

She started TRIPPEN.

By the airplane scene, Annie is medicated, wandering into first class, insisting everything is fine and seeing a colonial woman on the wing churning butter.

MA’AM.

RETURN TO YOUR SEAT.

And while I have personally never seen an eighteenth-century dairy operation outside an airplane window, spiritually?

I have absolutely been Annie.

Because desperation will make me do some strange things when I’m terrified of losing something.

Overthink.

Overanalyze.

Force conversations.

Try to control outcomes.

Hold onto relationships.

Obsess over opportunities.

Compare timelines.

Keep knocking on doors God already closed.

Then call all of it “fighting for what I want.”

Meanwhile God is essentially saying:

“Ma’am. Return to your seat.”

Because control is often fear dressed up as responsibility.

Annie wasn’t actually controlling anything.

She was unraveling because she couldn’t control Lillian’s relationship with Helen.

And maybe sometimes my attempts to control my life reveal the same thing.

I’m scared.

Scared I’ll miss something.

Scared somebody else will get what should have been mine.

Scared God won’t come through the way I hoped.

Scared His plan will require me to release mine.

That is what makes Israel’s king so sobering.

They wanted something so desperately that they stopped listening to wisdom.

God warned them.

They still wanted it.

And eventually, He allowed them to experience what they insisted upon.

That scares me more than a closed door ever could.

Because sometimes God’s protection sounds like “no.”

Some of His greatest blessings might be revealed in what He refuses to give me.

So I’m learning to praise Him for closed doors.

For relationships that didn’t survive.

For opportunities I didn’t get.

For prayers that seemed unanswered.

For things I begged Him for that present-day me can now look back on and say:

“Ohhhhhhh. Thank You for ignoring me.”

Because I have absolutely prayed for things that would have eventually had me spiritually wandering through first class looking for the colonial woman.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds me that God has plans too.

That verse sounds comforting until His plans interfere with mine.

Because I am not presenting my dreams to a God who forgot to make plans of His own.

Maybe surrender means admitting that some of mine are inferior.

And that requires wisdom.

Proverbs 4:7 says, “The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom.”

Whatever it costs me to gain godly wisdom will always be cheaper than what it costs me to live without it.

Because the enemy doesn’t necessarily need to make me evil.

Sometimes he just needs to keep me spiritually dumb.

Keep me reactive instead of discerning.

Keep me comparing instead of grateful.

Keep me entitled instead of surrendered.

Keep me offended instead of teachable.

Keep me desperate enough to demand kings God already warned me about.

Keep me knowing enough Scripture to quote God while lacking enough wisdom to actually listen to Him.

That is dangerous.

The goal isn’t simply for me to become more moral.

It’s for me to become wise.

And maybe wisdom is also realizing that purpose isn’t always some enormous thing I accomplish.

Sometimes purpose is presence.

Ruth teaches me that.

We don’t know Ruth’s résumé. We don’t know her spiritual gifts. We don’t know what she originally imagined her life becoming.

We know that when Naomi was grieving, bitter and returning home believing she had nothing left, Ruth stayed.

“Where you go, I will go.” (Ruth 1:16)

Her presence became ministry.

Then Genesis 41:50–51 gives us Manasseh.

Joseph named his son Manasseh because God had helped him move beyond the anguish of everything he had endured.

After betrayal, slavery, false accusation, imprisonment and years of waiting, God gave Joseph something that testified that pain did not get the final word.

Sometimes purpose looks like preaching.

Sometimes it looks like building.

Sometimes it looks like staying.

Sometimes ministry is simply what walks into the room when I do.

My character.

My compassion.

My wisdom.

My willingness to sit beside somebody who is hurting.

My presence.

Not just what I do, but how I do it.

Matthew 16:25 reminds me that whoever tries to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Christ will find it.

Maybe surrender isn’t God taking my life away from me.

Maybe He is rescuing me from the exhausting job of trying to control every detail of it.

Because God didn’t just save me from sin.

He has repeatedly had to save me from myself.

From comparison.

From entitlement.

From desperation.

From control.

From plans I baptized because I wanted them badly enough.

From looking at Helen and forgetting who I already am.

From looking at another nation’s king and forgetting Who has been leading me the entire time.

I will never be perfect.

I can, however, become surrendered.

So yes, I still dream.

I still make plans.

I still pray boldly.

I’m just learning to write those plans in pencil.

Because Proverbs 19:21 already told me who gets the final draft.

And maybe maturity is finally being able to look at the doors He closed, the prayers He redirected, the kings He refused to give me, and the plans He completely rearranged and say:

“Thank You.”

Not because I understand every adjustment.

But because I’m finally learning that when God tells me to return to my seat…

I probably don’t need to see the colonial woman churning butter before I listen.