Good is sill the enemy of best

 I had a surreal experience at Bible study last night.  The pastor started out with these words:  God is good.  And God is good.  He went on from there as if the Holy Spirit was using him to speak to me about everything I was thinking and feeling last night.

I have to tell a bit of a swiss cheese story.  God is up to something in my life, but it's not for public consumption.  I'm really going with the "If I can't understand it, how could you?" position so I'm keeping it to myself.  I can tell you that in this time of my life, He's asked me to do something:

Wait.

And a bunch of stuff that involves waiting, like not taking matters into my own hand, and trusting His plan is better than mine.

I have a type.  I know what that is.  So does whoever arranged that little test I had the other day.  Because she was just my type, standing on the beach, playing with her puppy.  She waved at me.  Twice.  And then we talked about our dogs briefly.  And then it hit me:  TEST!!!!   Feet, don't fail me now...feet don't fail me now.  I just kind of said have a nice day and got my feet moving.  On my way past her again, she waved bye...

That was a hard thing to do.  Did I mention she was just my type?  And that she had a puppy?  She had a freakin' puppy..... that's like the double cherry on the sundae that she was.  If I'd have asked God for one, that would have been pretty close to what I'd have asked for.  But I didn't ask.  I'm still kind of reeling from before, so moving my feet seemed wise.  

Yesterday, I was pretty down.  Not because I said no.  I know that was a test.  I was down because that just meant I was by myself.  I took it pretty hard and I felt the Holy Spirit telling me "I'm not going to leave you like this."  He didn't.  Through Psalm 26, as the pastor walked through it last night, God started doing things like giving me strength.  He showed me how He helped me avoid that temptation.  He made me remember how good and faithful He has been up to this point, and then He reminded me to wait on Him.  

I talked to the pastor afterward and told him that I know being a pastor is a tough gig and wanted to be an encouragement to him because I could tell him that everything he talked about during the lesson had come to pass pretty much in front of his eyes in that room.  He was genuinely appreciative and even prayed over that thing God is doing that I didn't even tell him about.

I got home and was so excited to write down all the things that had happened but that still, small voice asked me to take the dog around the block on his walk first.   The rain had stopped (and it rained for reals yesterday) so off we went.  My neighborhood is really quiet after dark and because we're so close to the ocean, you can hear the surf here.  It makes for peaceful nights.  The Christmas lights in the neighborhood really add to the experience as well.  As we walk about half-way up the first street, again, the still small voice:  Write it (the it was pretty specific) down in your journal.  So when we got home, I did.

Write it down seems to be pretty specific.  There's no question what I wrote down, or that I was supposed to.  As I was writing about what happened my phone let me know I got a text.  Then things went from there and some things changed.  The question I had about the Bible verses from the other day....well let's just say that it could have been one thing or the other, but it turned out to be a little bit of both.  

Good is the enemy of best.  I'm telling you, that woman on the beach, well she looked reallllyyyyyy good.  And she had a puppy.  She liked me.  One can tell.  But she's not best for me and if I hadn't taken the way out of that little temptation, then I might have missed out on what happened last night.  That would not have been best.

I get to experience God in a lot of unique ways and lately it's on a deeper level than I ever thought I could go.  He's leading.  I'm following.  And for Him to not only not leave me where I was when I walked out of the house last night at a quarter after six, to taking me where He did.  Well that's something I hope I never forget.