What Am I Doing Here? (Part 1 of 4)

One day, I looked around and find I’m laying on a cliff’s edge. I can’t be sure that hand or that leg is attached to my body; it’s so numb beneath me.  From all evidence, it’s attached to the same poufy-haired-crazy-girl, but that’s about all I’m sure of at the moment. I can’t seem to move. I lack a real sense of what has happened and the mental and physical weariness is overwhelming. When did I get to this place and how did I come to be lying on the ground here?? The ground is dry and uneven; hard and cracked. I have the scars to show a rough landing, and a layer of dirt clings to me. How on earth did I get here? Why is it so dark and silent? What happened??

Panic can easily rise at such moments. The chaos presses in and all instincts pull toward a rebellion. React against this unwanted state.  I don’t even know for sure how I ended up here. A freak-out seems warranted. What am I doing here?

First, keep calm and remember.

Remember the last thing God spoke. Don’t tell anyone, but what was it? A statement or a question in the still small voice? A promise or a vision to enlarge and encourage you? Remember.  What was the last thing he said that you know for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, was him confirming, correcting or directing you? Because attached to those last words of life, cling His faithfulness. Attached to that last encouragement or correction, is His unending love.  

Deuteronomy 8:2 ~ Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. (All of Deuteronomy 8 is a gem).

In The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, Jill Pole encounters Aslan alone and she's instantly instructed in four signs that she is to repeat to herself daily and guide her through her mission from the Great Lion. Poor Jill suddenly found herself in a new world, calling to Aslan because he had called to her, and her first task is to remember. Upon finding herself in Narnia, Jill says, “It must be a dream. It must. It must.” Then as the terror of reality sets in… “I do wish we’d never come to this dreadful place.”

It is easy when we find ourselves in a place we don’t want to be, with circumstances other than how we want them, to be instantly against it all and demand to wake from the nightmare. But it is Aslan’s response to Jill’s acceptance of the mission that strikes me most. “…the first step is to remember.” A seemingly innocuous command. Remember. In the mundane day-to-day or the joy and bliss or in the midst of panic or chaos or tragedy and struggle, how many of us truly remember the words God has given us? “Remember the signs…”
 

Psalms 42:6-7

My soul is downcast within me;

   therefore I will remember you

from the land of the Jordan,

   the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep

   in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

   have swept over me.   

What signs or words has God given you that you’ve forgotten? What signs did you miss because they didn’t look like you thought they would? As I stare at the gravel beneath me and the wide open space before the cliff I am stuck on, I’m remembering with scrabbling thoughts and frantic fear, all the things I’ve forgotten so I have something to hold on to.

Remember what was spoken to the quiet of your heart. Remember the encouragement, the proud-papa words, the directions and corrections, all spoken in love and tenderness. In all he does, even when we can’t figure out why we’re on a cliff’s edge, is the Father’s faithfulness and unfailing love.

Remember.