Stalled

The word leaped from the reading that I was listening to this morning, Christine Caine’s new book Unexpected   “Stalled.”  I don’t remember if the word following was faith or hope, listening while I get ready for work often means I listen to some books over and over to get the full impact; but the epiphany that “stalled” is where I am at and have been for some time was clear.  I am at a standstill.  People on the outside can look and see that I am “productive” but on the inside, I feel stalled.  I know there is more, and I want to press on the gas of my emotional, spiritual, physical and even career life but I feel like I am inadvertently stopped.

My truck recently, and in the same spot three times, has stalled.  I need to take it to the dealer and have them check the computer codes, but in the moment I turned my truck off and then turned it back on.  Each time it restarted.  When I called the dealer the maintenance staff told me that generally a stalled vehicle needs some type of attention.   They didn’t seem to believe that it just turned right back on for me (Maybe that is just God’s grace for me.)  When my computer stalls, I generally start with turning it off or restarting it.  Most computer technicians recommend starting there if there is a problem.

Maybe this book holds the answers to help me figure out when it happened that I stopped moving forward in the trajectory God placed before me.  Maybe it can help me identify what I allowed to stall me out and why I have allowed it to continue for so long.  Maybe it will offer the sufficient challenge I need to fix the issue and move forward.  However, I suspect that it will not be that easy and that God used the book to bring focus so that He could answer the when, what, why and how to my problem.

I don’t know how to turn things off in my life and restart where I am; yet, I know God does.  I don’t doubt that I am where I am supposed to be at this moment.  I believe that even if I am where I am suppose to be that there is more that I should be doing for the Kingdom in my life, in my career, and in my journey with God.  Not necessary works, as I am productive, but refined focus of what I am doing and stepping out in the gifts and talents that God has been developing and refining in my life.

You never know when or where God will speak.  Or how He can use one word to spark a fire within.  I love that in the rush of getting ready in the morning, that He would  speak a word through a passionate Australian Christian activist writer to make me pause to consider where I am.  His grace is sufficient wherever we find ourselves to reach out and draw us into deeper pursuit of Him.