Oh they did; they sure did, first throwing him into a disused well, then uncaringly selling him on for thirty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, not caring what became of him.
And what came out of his experience of betrayal, slavery, false accusation, and imprisonment was elevation—promotion—influence–the ability to save many lives.
* * *
I used to feel stressed and a bit hopeless if I had enemies, if I thought there were people with inveterate animosity, jealousy, competitiveness, or malice towards me, who would block me, who might slander me. The thought of such people still does not make my heart sing!
But they are a fact of life. “Some are jealous of your face. Some are jealous of your lace. And some will be jealous of your grace,” as RT Kendall writes in The Anointing.
However, Shakespeare’s young Henry V puts it well, “We are in God’s hands, brothers, not in theirs.”
I sigh if I realize someone is reflexively blocking me or my ideas, putting in a bad word for me, but I am not afraid.
I do not fear them.
Because there are always two stories going on in our lives: the plot we see, and the story God is still writing. There is the story people think they are forcing onto your life–in which you may miss the chance to lead, speak, get the prize, the invitation, because someone feels threatened by you, is jealous of you, or just plain dislikes you.
Often you are unaware of these machinations, and that’s best. When you do know, you wring your hands with a sense of loss.
But all is not lost.
You were not meant to lead at that time. You were meant to quietly follow the One. You were not meant to speak at that time. You were meant to listen.
Sure, it will take you longer to achieve your heart’s desire. The Spirit is taking you on the scenic route. You are in the desert, where all voices are silent, but the voice of God; 
where is no trophy but his companionship; no wine but his spirit; where your progress is not measurable, and, anyway, there’s no one to praise it.
Why, even your prayers aren’t working. Every avenue of showing off is blocked.
Welcome to the desert, fellow pilgrim, where God himself blocks you.
* * *
You say: “See here, God, I have wasted my life. Look at me, mid-life and achievement-poor. Remember, God, those years I was promising; remember that award for a writer of unusual promise? Why I was in my twenties then. The snazzy university, the snazzy prizes, the early publications, the blushing peach down of promise, remember?
Well, I’ve failed, and you’ve failed me; we’ve failed together, you and I.
Yeah, you really haven’t managed my life too well, Lord, and neither have I. Let’s just go eat some worms.
My twenties are over, my thirties, my… Let’s just say “my hasting days fly on with full career, but my summer little bud or blossom showeth.”
How can you make up to me, God for the years when I wanted to build much, but instead built little?
You have behaved rather badly towards me, my God, my friend. You have let me down. You are my friend, and so I forgive you, but I am sad about this. I am.
But if I love anyone, I love you. So yes, I will follow you because, you’ve sure ruined my appetite for following other paths of glory.
I believe you can restore the years the locusts have eaten. The prophet Joel said so, and Christians have attested to it. But I don’t see how. Jesus, let’s be honest here, I sometimes feel as if nothing can compensate me for those wasted years, the years in Joseph’s dungeon.
I really do.
Though they were what you gave me, and I accept them because I love and trust you. I accept them from your hands in trust as I accept the full years of your goodness.
* * *
And you, Lord, reply:
“Child, child, friend, beloved, Anita, what you wanted was a lesser good, and so I withheld it.
You saw the success of your writer friends—their whirl of book readings, teaching gigs, speaking gigs, lectures, prizes, prolific writing, book contracts, money, fame, fascinating friends, travel. All the trappings of a career. And you wanted it too.
And I knew you wanted it.
But I also knew you better than you knew yourself. Don’t make that face. I truly do.
You were not ready for the busyness of travel, deadlines, speaking, teaching, crises, midnight oil.
Fame and glory–what made you think it would make you happy? I knew it would not. It would not. Rushing to planes, trains and automobiles has never made you happy. Rush has never makes you happy, or busyness, or deadlines. You love quiet unscheduled days at home, or in your garden.
But I promise you this: You will write the books you want to write. You will not die before your pen has gleaned your teeming brain.
All the things you deeply love and want to explore and preserve in words, I will ensure you explore and preserve them,
All the things I kept from you, I kept not for your harm, but that you might find it in my arms.
You are sad that success came later than you wanted it, but trust me.
The bright lights of the big cities would have obscured me.
The noise would have silenced my whisper.
A hammer had to be taken to all those idols.
There had to be a gotterdamerung, a ragnarok. You wanted to be Ms. Famous Writer, to dazzle the world with your creativity. You wanted fame, glory, money, success, as you saw your friends get it.
I gave you quietness, I wooed you to the desert, and there I showed you my love.
You had but one shot at investing in your children. I slowed down your career so you could teach them all you had to teach them. And could your marriage have withstood the rush in peace, not pieces? Did you want to be Ms. Divorced Famous Writer? You did not.
You have reached mid life with a full heart and full spirit, into which I have poured and poured and poured myself and my words. And now it is time to write.
* * *
“Oh God, could you not have poured both? Both yourself and the other things I wanted?”
“But then there would not have been room for me. I had to pry your fingers from other things, so they would clasp me. Had to silence other sounds, so you could hear me.
I gave you not what you thought you wanted, but what you love, quiet and peace and silence. And in the quietness of your country garden, I shaped you, I formed you, I made you into a woman of integrity, a woman aligned with me, a woman I can trust.
You sometimes feel you’ve wasted your life.
But child, you’ve given your life to me. It’s now my story, not yours. I am the author, not you.
Accept the plot twist I chose. Forgive me, as I forgive you. It was not time before. It’s time now. It’s time.
* * *
Lord, I accept the plot you chose. I accept my years in the wilderness. I accept your judgement that they were necessary. I forgive you.
And I will go forward in joy, in alignment with you, your joy filling my heart.
* * *
Open your hands wide, and I will fill them. Your heart has been reformed in the silent years.
Now I know, and you know, that while your hands are full of my blessings, your eyes will be on me and your heart will be full of me.
* * *
Tweetables
Welcome to the desert, fellow pilgrim, where God himself blocks you. From @anitamathias1
You are in the desert, where all voices are silent, but the voice of God. From @anitamathias1
There are always two stories going on in our lives, the story we perceive, and the story God is still writing From @anitamathias1
When God stills all the noise, and you say “See here, God. I have wasted my life.” From @anitamathias1
Questions
Have you experienced a period of great silence? Have you experienced God more deeply as a result?
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Anita,
What a beautiful post. You have captured much of what I feel in my life, as I have reached a place in life not of my own doing. A place that I consider unfair but I still hold on waiting for Him to show the direction I am to go.
Be blessed
Mary
Be blessed too, Mary, and thank you for commenting!
Late 50ies. 30-40 years more of life. Of active productive life, if the Lord wills it, and if he gives you health, and you maintain it. (Latter a challenge for me :-). Life is very long, and God may yet resurrect your dream, or replace it with a better one!
Yes and Amen!
Thank you so much for this!
This so describes the season I have been in. Now in my late 50’s in a place of seeming inactivity and melancholy over what seems to be an unfulfilled dream and promise.
Reading this puts things in perspective and imparts great encouragement and hope.
Thank you for writing and posting this and all the many other posts that have challenged and encouraged me and, I am sure, so many others.
I started to read, and thought of Shakespeare.
KING HENRY V (Act 4, Scene 1)
Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be.
Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry:
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
I continued reading and was hit! And the tears flowed. More I cannot say.
Andy, thank you so much for reading and commenting. I am glad you liked it. The desert is a more common experience than one might imagine, and I believe God takes everyone he loves through it!
I am speechless, Anita. Thank you for being so obedient and writing this post – today! You cannot imagine the timing of my reading it after certain events that have unfolded this past week and the critical moment I am at in my own writing career – ministry – the place God has been leading me through all the things you mentioned. I do not want the noise – never did. And, I have been formed in the quiet, silence, that country garden. So much so, in fact, it is the foundation of my current discipleship project. But, those wolves you mentioned have drawn blood – again – this week. A corner has been turned on this journey and it’s just me and God. He’s brought me this far – He will not drop me. He will cause me to more than walk on the water but to dance on the waves. Your post is His response to a prayer I whispered just before I clicked on the link where it was on Christian Poets and Writers in my email box.
I think we have many commonplaces – I am blessed to read more of your mid-life musings. Kindred.
Thank you for writing . . . and the ministry in the quiet.
Joy!
Kathryn Ross
http://www.thewritersreverie.com
Dancing on the waves. What a wonderful image!
“Your post is His response to a prayer I whispered just before I clicked on the link where it was on Christian Poets and Writers in my email box.” My goodness–it is so wonderful and heartening for a writer when that happens!
Wow, Anita. You’ve written so well about many of the things that have been going on in my own life too: a period of silence, unproductiveness, grief and confusion. It’s funny. I’ve also been thinking of the passage you mentioned about God speaking tenderly to his beloved in the desert. Holy Spirit gave me that passage at a conference many years ago, but only yesterday, I realised I had been meant to apply it to myself. I could have saved myself some anguish. He is good. I’m so glad He knows what He’s doing!
I will lure her into the desert and there I will show her my love, Hosea 2:14. Makes perfect sense to me. Where else would we have enough time for Him, or each other, or all that is good, quiet and holy, but is the still, silent desert, that plac e of sensory deprivation!
PS “Only a mum at home’ is of course a perception by others, I hasten to add … children are a blessing, and th
e lack of them is a desperate sadness to many … I have always valued my children, it was the comments of others implying ‘what, you haven’t got a a career AS WELL? You are not contributing to society?” which I referred to above!
Thanks, Mari. If I hadn’t had children, I would be so much older physically,mentally and emotionally because I would have worked myself to exhaustion. Children taught me to keep my life balanced. My older daughter is now going to Oxford University, this weekend, and I find I am still mentally and spiritually fresh, and quite game for new writing projects and new writing adventures.
So apparently God always had a long range plan in my life while I wanted what I wanted NOW!!
Well, wow, lots of comments including from some peopleI know from other places! Good stuff, Anita, very encouraging to the rest of us … Yes, I felt the same as you many times, plodding through child-rearing and people kind of implying ‘oh you’re only a mum at home, what about your degree?’ etc … and there is so much more than being ‘only a mum’ because while doing that one is still wondering What is my purpose? and why life is as it is. And I had that promise too, about God restoring the years which the locusts had eaten … and how cynical one can become about it (esp living in the capital of cynicism, where we both live!) The past 14 years, after a deep sorrow, losing someone, have been the most productive, creative, and fruitful … because, so often, the wisdom you need to learn first deepens the stuff (writing, and other things) you can produce, and also, one’s relationship with God (who has it all worked out of course) . Thanks for this, you put it better! And now off to paint the garden bench with preservative for the winter …
Oh, yes. I’ve had those tastes of milk and honey too but mostly after truly prizing His company above all.
I continue to look forward to what more will be drawn from the deep well of your experiences. You are a gift to us.
Much love,
Andrea
Thanks, Andrea.
“mostly after truly prizing His company above all.” Interestingly that’s where I’ve got to in my blogging. I want the experiences and character which will inform good blog posts more than I want to write good blog posts. I.e. I want to surrender to Jesus, to know his joy and peace, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be a woman of integrity, more than I want the beautiful posts which might flow out of such things…
Thanks for commenting, and welcome to my blog!
Anita, this experience and encounter with God is uniquely yours, of course, but I identify with this! I also pray your post will encourage other Christian poets & writers, so I highlighted it on the Christian Poets & Writers blog – http://christianpoetsandwriters.blogspot.com.
Mary, thank you. How kind of you to highlight it. And welcome to my blog!
Oh, Anita, this. For me, today; it brought tears.
I need to have a conversation like this with the Lord, too, if I can find Him.
Thank you. x
Helen, tears, yes! For me too, writing it. 🙂
Strange how these things go; been experiencing a very similar process.
Thank you.
Vivienne! Welcome to my blog, and thank you for commenting!
Anita, an amazing post. Thank you for your transparent honesty. It has been most helpful to me today. I will be re-reading this post tonight when i have more time to pray through all the things it brings up for me.
So honest, so how I feel at times. Different issues for me, like the longing for my own family which will now never happen for me. So much truth, grace and loving compassion.
Bless you.
Lynda
Hi, Lynda, yes, I can imagine how sad that can be.
I feel as if I achieved nothing very much for twenty years or so when I had hoped to do so much, and, as I said, it’s hard for me to understand how God can restore THOSE years.
But I have given my life to him, and the plot he writes, well, I will accept it with as much joy and cheerfulness as I can muster.
Also, most people God uses have had a deep experience of sadness and brokenness. Perhaps that makes us someone God can use. I guess the desert is a necessary experience. Sigh, and sigh!