I’m not fond of pushiness ….You know that “used car salesman”  feeling you get when you have been pushed to overspend, overcommit, or just plain give too much time to a situation when - down deep - you know you shouldn’t.

I have found in my own life, however, that I am also guilty of being pushy.  Not with others so much, as with myself.  I come up with reasons why I need to help God, why I want to hurry Him up because things just aren’t moving in the right direction fast enough.  Perhaps, I think — if I put myself out there, talk to this person, sign up for that — I can arrange things in an order that maybe, just maybe, I can step on the gas a bit.  A tiny manipulation can’t really hurt, can it?

There is a nuance here — I am not speaking to things that we should do in the normal course of life.  We are expected to move, to extend ourselves, to be open to others and to circumstances that sometimes cause us to have to stretch.

This is that other thing —that thing we feel we have to do because everyone else does, or because our friends tell us to, or because “things at rest tend to stay at rest,”  and so we push ourselves to something different. 

Maybe it’s a social situation, where you go against your instincts because you are compelled by reasoning to get out more, meet new people, rub elbows, join a club… Only to find you are uncomfortable. Empty. Ill at ease.

This happens to me — I start conforming myself to what the world whispers, and stop listening to God.

How do we know the difference between what you feel led to do, and pushing yourself like a square peg into a round hole into something that seems right but your heart is simply not in it?  When fitting in means changing aspects of ourselves, we are seeking validation from the wrong people and places. 

Sometimes God calls us to be alone for a season.  He wants us to be still, to press into Him, to heal. He wants us to be expectant that He is working it all out, even when there is no evidence of it yet.

I find that when I do the pushing, I am inauthentic.  I hate that “fake it til you make it” syndrome.  But when He is doing it, when I am following His lead, things unfold the way they are supposed to. 

Maybe you can relate.

The older I get, the more I seek to hear His voice.  The more I understand that there is nothing wrong with how He made me, that we all commune in different ways.  Some of us find more clarity and fulfillment in a long walk on our own. Others find it in a crowd or at a party.

When I am restless, doubt creeps in.  I wonder at the pace that I am going, if I will meet the right person or people, if I will fail at fulfilling my destiny somehow, or miss an opportunity that will change my life.

And then I realize…. The greatest moments I have ever known, the most serendipitous, the truly divine interventions, happened without me doing anything — it was all Him.  

If God wants you to move in a direction, He will nudge you there.  If He intends for someone to come onto your path, He will place them there.  If He wants to bless you, provide for you, intervene for you… He will do so.

Nothing can stop God.  

If He’s calling you to dance, dance.  If He’s leading you to run, run.  To take a chance, change a job, start a business, fall in love, build a house, plant a garden… Do these things because He is placing them within you.  He seeks our trust, our obedience, our faith.  He’s always teaching us, refining us, readying us.

He may be pulling you out of something, causing within you a hunger to break old habits and excuses, to be honest with yourself and to look deeply at things that have held you back, patterns of enabling, of denial, of numbing just to get by.

Maybe He is calling you inward, to reflect, to repent, to revise, to renew.  Perhaps you are called to silence, to fast, to be more prayerful.  He wants you fortified in His spirit so that you will be reformed and reignited in new ways that will bring you forward.   

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I don’t want to push it.  I want it all to unfold as He has designed it. 

This is when we witness miracles. 

Can you hear it?  He’s whispering to you now. You will know it’s Him because it is resonating deep within you.

Whatever it is He is calling you to do, have confidence that He has a purpose for it.

Your faith is all that is required.

Serendipity awaits.

Don’t push it.

Mary Bryant is the author of "When He Walks Away… Hearing God When Your Husband Leaves Your Marriage,” a 5-Star Rated book available on Amazon