Un-sta-ble

I quite recently received what at first felt like an incredible insult but which after several days of pondering I have decided instead is one of my greatest compliments.

I was described as unstable.  

Unstable is defined as “capable of undergoing spontaneous change.” “An atom, possessing excessive energy, in an unstable state is called excited.” “Not firm or fixed in one place; likely to move.”

I wonder if Abraham, in his old age, was considered unstable when he chose to obey God, pick up his life and move to a place where he was described as a foreigner living in a foreign land.  He most definitely was not fixed in one place as he stepped out in obedience, risking it all, to live a life of total surrender to his Father.

Moses may very well have been described as unstable as he chose to give up the life of luxury to instead live among his own people.  He chose to step down the social ladder instead of stepping up; who in their stable mind would do such a thing?

Gideon must have felt and looked incredibly unstable as he took his shrinking army of 300 men to fight the Midianites who numbered in the thousands, whose camels were described as “numerous as the sands on the seashore.”  Yet, in total obedience to God, he risked everything, including his reputation.  I’m guessing he possessed “excessive energy and excitement” in his unstable position.  There is a very long list of names of men and women in the Bible who could be described as unstable.

There are seasons of our lives where we are not given the luxury of safe, stable, or sure things.  Instead, we are asked to trust our Father with each moment of our lives and to keep our hearts open to Him in complete and total surrender.  Sometimes we are asked to move geographically in obedience to Him; other times we are asked to trust Him as we learn to hold loosely all that He has blessed our lives with-- even when all we have is stripped away.  Life may look and feel unstable as our self-created identities are traded for our God-created identities; it is a painful process at best and feels anything but stable.

I wonder if Noah attempted to defend himself to the questions of onlookers when God asked him to build an ark.  The ark was not hidden in Noah’s back yard and kept a secret from the world.  Noah got to look unstable as the world watched and judged. The ark was not built in a day; Noah had to surrender his reputation daily in obedience to God’s plan.  When we are willing to risk our livelihoods, our finances, our homes, and our reputations for God—there’s no telling what purposes of God’s can be accomplished through our unstable lives.

Are you capable of undergoing spontaneous change? Are you in an excited or active state, such as an atom with a nucleus possessing excessive energy? In other words, are you unstable?

I believe we are well on our way to cracking the lid wide open to our total effectiveness and our true purposes as we fully surrender and give God full control—embracing the fact that a life lived fully for God will appear to be anything but stable.

Stay the Course...

Sheila Cote