Plot Twist: It’s Me. I’m the Hindrance.

Last night, I prayed a dangerous prayer.

I asked God to expose the areas in me that are hindering me.

Apparently, Heaven heard, “Please hurt my feelings before coffee.”

Because this morning, the word was complacent.

Excuse me?

I would have accepted weary. Maybe cautious. Healing has a lovely ring to it. I could have worked with “waiting on God.”

Complacent felt disrespectful.

Except… it was accurate.

Because there are places where I keep calling something “waiting on God” when God has already given me an instruction and is actually waiting on me.

That realization sat me down.

Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, “Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.”

And suddenly, I realized I have spent entirely too much of my life watching weather.

Not literally.

Emotionally.

I watch the wind.

I watch the clouds.

I study conditions.

I calculate probabilities.

I rehearse outcomes.

I anticipate pain.

Then I call all of that wisdom.

The problem is, I have never actually seen wind.

I have seen trees bend because of it. I have watched leaves scatter because of it. I have heard windows rattle because of it.

I have also seen what wind can do to fire.

I have watched footage of flames already burning become more devastating and dire because the wind picked up. Fire that may have been somewhat contained suddenly jumps, spreads, changes direction, and consumes territory faster than anyone anticipated.

I have never seen the wind itself.

I have seen what the wind can do.

And unfortunately, that is exactly how I approach vulnerability.

I have seen what betrayal can do.

I have seen what abandonment can do.

I have seen what misplaced trust can do.

I have seen what disappointment can do.

So now, when I feel even the slightest emotional breeze, something in me starts preparing for wildfire.

The fire is not even here yet, girl.

Still, I am mentally evacuating.

I have learned to watch for invisible things based on the devastation I have seen them cause before.

That may have protected me in one season, but it can imprison me in another.

Because now I am not always responding to what is happening.

Sometimes I am responding to what could happen if the wind blows the wrong direction.

Then come the clouds.

Clouds tell me rain might be coming.

They give me information, not instruction.

Yet I have spent years treating the possibility of rain like permission not to sow.

If someone’s tone changes, cloud.

If circumstances become uncertain, cloud.

If I cannot predict the outcome, cloud.

If vulnerability is required, apparently we are under a severe thunderstorm warning and I need everyone indoors immediately.

I see clouds and immediately start preparing for what they could produce.

Then, because I am me, I start asking how I caused the weather.

What should I have noticed?

What should I have said?

Why didn’t I know?

What did I do wrong?

What could I have done differently?

I can examine a situation until I somehow become responsible for everything that happened in it.

Self-reflection is healthy until I appoint myself sovereign.

That was another cut.

Because there is a difference between conviction and condemnation.

Conviction says, “Here is where you were wrong. Come higher.”

Condemnation says, “Everything went wrong because something is wrong with you.”

One gives me somewhere to go.

The other gives me somewhere to sit.

And if I sit there long enough, paralysis starts looking a whole lot like complacency.

That hurt.

Especially because Ecclesiastes is not Proverbs.

Proverbs gives wisdom for how to live. Ecclesiastes gives me the reflections of a man who discovered that knowing wisdom and living wisely are two entirely different things.

Solomon could write wisdom and still fail to steward it.

Which means knowing better does not automatically make me better.

Whew.

Luke 2:52 says Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”

Wisdom came before favor.

Maybe some of the things I keep asking God to bring me into require a version of me wise enough to steward them.

Maybe delay is not always denial.

Maybe sometimes delay is development.

Then Ecclesiastes 11 got even more disrespectful.

Verse 5 reminds me that I do not know the path of the wind or understand the work of God.

And there it was.

The thing underneath all my watching, calculating, analyzing and waiting:

I want certainty more than I want instruction.

Whew.

I want God to explain where obedience leads before I obey.

I want Him to show me the harvest before I plant.

I want confirmation that nobody will hurt me before I become vulnerable.

I want proof that the decision will work before I make it.

I want the ending before I agree to the beginning.

Basically, I want obedience with spoilers.

God has not promised me that.

He has promised me Himself.

That made me think about The Butterfly Effect.

The entire movie is basically a lesson in the insanity of trying to control outcomes.

Go backward.

Change this decision.

Fix that moment.

Prevent this pain.

Manipulate one variable.

Surely this time everything will turn out right.

Except every attempt to manufacture the perfect outcome creates another consequence.

Different decision.

Different timeline.

Different disaster.

Watching it, I can see how exhausting it is to believe, “If I can just make the perfect choice, I can control what happens next.”

Meanwhile…

Hi. It’s me.

I have lived my own emotional version of The Butterfly Effect.

Maybe if I say this perfectly, nobody will misunderstand me.

Maybe if I notice every warning sign, nobody can blindside me.

Maybe if I make the safest decision, I will not regret it.

Maybe if I analyze every possible outcome, I can prevent pain.

Maybe if I watch the wind closely enough, I can prevent the fire.

Maybe if I study every cloud, I can avoid the rain.

That is not wisdom.

That is me trying to negotiate with uncertainty.

And the uncomfortable truth is that sometimes my obsession with making the right decision has kept me from making any decision at all.

Ecclesiastes 11:6 says, “Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle.”

Plant anyway.

Clouds? Plant.

Wind? Plant.

Uncertainty? Plant.

Imperfect conditions?

Plant.

Because nothing fails quite like doing nothing.

And this is where I had to stop blaming every delay on destiny.

Some delays were decisions.

Some doors did not remain closed because Satan was attacking me.

Some opportunities did not pass because “it wasn’t my season.”

Sometimes I stood there watching the clouds so long that I simply never planted.

That one bled.

Because if my decisions helped get me somewhere, my decisions can participate in getting me out.

Not condemnation.

Conviction.

Condemnation makes me stare backward and punish myself.

Conviction allows me to look backward, learn, and choose differently.

I cannot redo yesterday.

I can make an unpreferred decision today.

I can obey without ideal conditions.

I can move without certainty.

I can stop demanding that God give me a ten-day forecast when He has already told me what to do today.

Maybe the question is no longer, “God, what are You doing?”

Maybe the question is:

Is my instruction clear?

Because if it is, maybe I do not need another sign.

Maybe I need movement.

The wind may blow.

I know what wind can do to fire.

The clouds may gather.

I know what clouds can become.

The rain may actually come.

The thing I plant may not even grow the way I imagined.

But watching the weather will never produce a harvest.

I cannot reap what fear convinced me not to sow.

And maybe I am not waiting on God nearly as much as I thought.

Maybe, in some places, God has been waiting on me.