Preparing the Sacrifice

BY

LINDA WOOD RONDEAU

Variations of the same theme:

God doesn’t close a door, but that He opens a window

Failure is God’s opportunity.

When man’s hope is gone, God’s Grace is only beginning.

All sayings that teach us that failure and disappointment are not the end, merely God’s redirection.  

Another rejection…another year gone by with no forward movement…caught in a rut that seems deeper each year. Though I remembered all these sayings, I wondered if they weren’t just another form of sour grapes. Then I recalled God’s many interventions, and I felt pricked at how soon I’d forgotten them.

The twists and turns, bruises and bleeding, that I mistook for abandonment were merely speed bumps along the way…lessons that God had to teach me for His plan to unfold in my life. Perhaps the pain of it all was not God’s pricking me, but rather pruning me, not for success but for an ultimate purpose far more important than a book contract.

He reminds me that not the doing, the walking, or the works of my hands matter most to God. His quest is not my profession as defined by man. More so, His quest is my heart and my unwavering love.

There is a Valley that stretches between

God’s desires for my life and His fulfillment of the promise—

in that Valley God reveals himself.

The first call came in expected ways….but there was no mistaking His Voice. “Leave this place of defeat and follow me down a path that I will show you, which leads to completeness.”  And so I left the familiar, held His hand, and bolted toward my new life—that of the writer’s world, fully expecting great things. “I will show you more than you hoped or dreamed,” God said.

And I believed Him. But my definition of great things meant fame and fortune, travel and excitement. I didn’t think the journey would be thorny. So many times I wanted to quit, even asking God to take away this desire…the constant diet of disappointment caused constipation of purpose.

Eleven years to the day of God’s first call, the second call came for a book contract. I put my hands toward heaven…only God could have orchestrated such an affirmation. Then He showed me that my journey is not over…there are still Valleys to cross, and my journey will continue to take twists and turns…

for the fulfillment is not in contracts and man’s approval

but in God’s complete possession of my heart.

The Valley of this thing called Life, the terrain by which He fulfills that quest.

In Abraham’s journey, God’s promise seemed slow in coming. He kept looking forward to God’s promise of a son. The far-distant fulfillment stretched his faith. At the right time, after decades of pruning, Isaac was born. Yet, Abraham’s journey did not end. God still had much more to teach him, Isaac, Jacob, and all who followed Father Abraham.

Perhaps Abraham’s frustration of delayed answered prayer stemmed from only hearing part of God’s promise, his sights set on the tangible rather than the intangible elements of God’s call, “They will be my people and I will be their God.”

Therein is the Valley of Life, the journey from Promise to fulfillment. It is in this Valley that God teaches me how much He wants to be my God and how much He desires for me to be His child.

“Those who are victorious will inherit all this,

and I will be their God and they will be my children”

(Revelation 21:7).