Is this my idea...or...

That bracelet was a craft project during one of our Teen Girls Sleepovers...probably 5 or 6 years ago.  'Amats' is the Hebrew word for 'Courage'.

In sitting down and trying to figure out what's holding me back...you know, you get asked that question at almost all big conferences at some point...I've had to question my courage.

And I come down to this...if I knew, absolutely knew, that I had a word and direction from God, I could go after it with everything.

But I have been wrong so many times.

See, I kinda had the idea that if something occurred to me,  from out of the blue, so to speak, not as a product of my own reasoning ( or maybe as a product of some particularly non-typically brilliant reasoning) I figured it had to be God.  And I'd go tearing off that way...only to run into a brick wall.

Now, I understand timing and all, and I know Joseph's Words all seemed in direct contrast to everything that happened in his life until Pharoah pulled him out of jail, but those times are not of that nature. 

I got it wrong.

So I'm a little gun shy now.

And when a random idea related to something I feel I have a promise on landed in my brain this morning, I didn't jump up and  do it.

Because I am tired of running into walls.  I'm tired of offering my dreams up to a chorus of crickets...or, worse yet, outright disdain.  I'm tired of sending Ishmaels out...because it seemed like a good idea. 


Gideon said to God, " If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised -- look I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor.  If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand as you have said."  And that is what happened.  Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew -- a bowl full of water.

Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me.  Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece.  This time make the fleece dray and the ground covered with dew."  That night God did so.  Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.  (Judges 6:36-40, NIV84)

Gideon gets a lot of flak for that. 'Putting out a fleece' has even entered the vernacular...and is rather disparaged.  But,  Gideon had a whole army to convince; I don't think the fleece was to convince himself; he knew he had had a word.  I think it was to convince the rest of the tribes that he had really heard a word.

If God will confirm a word to the people who need to hear it, who need to believe, I don't think it's out of line to ask Him to confirm a word that might be Him...or might be my own problem-solving  brain at work.

So, I'm asking for confirmation.  If that idea was a God- idea, I'll follow through.  If it wasn't...well, either there is another door down the road a bit...or maybe I've got the whole thing wrong and NONE of it was God...just my imagination.  God knows what I need. 

It's not a lack of faith in God...it's a lack of faith in my ability to wait for His voice and not go following my own.  I need a landmark so I know it really is Him.

I'll let you know if anything comes of it. ;-)