I don't understand

I grew up believing that God was in control of every circumstance, and he had a reason for allowing everything that happened to you. I was taught to believe that God didn’t send everything to us, necessarily, but he was certainly in control enough to allow it, and if he did allow it, then he had a reason for it. It was pretty much your basic Calvinistic theology.

But somewhere along the way I began to believe that God chooses to use people to meet our needs, that he rarely acts completely supernaturally, and that he wants his church – his people, to be his hands & feet on earth. And when you allow for people to be the chosen instrument of God here on earth, you set yourself up for a lot of disappointment. Because people don’t always do what they are supposed to do. People aren’t always sensitive to what God wants to do. So on one side, this has given me a sense of responsibility – of wanting to be sensitive to God’s leading so that I don’t miss out on something that he wants me to do, or some need that he wants me to meet. But on the other side, I don’t know what to do with this belief system.

You see, Calvinism is somewhat comforting. You always have the “God is bigger than me, sees more than I do, and there must be some great purpose for what’s going on here”. At least in this situation you have hope that something good is going to come out of it, and that life is actually supposed to be that way. But when you allow for people to be the instruments, and for mistakes to be made, you sometimes end up where your needs are not being met, for seemingly no reason. And that’s not to say that God can’t use those situations, just that you know that that’s not what he intends, and so it kind of makes it harder to bear.

And sad to say, for much of my life, I have been in that position. I have had huge, gaping wounds, open emotional sores, and nothing I can do about it. If I were still a Calvinist, I could say that God has a reason, and that he’s trying to teach me something about life. But without that belief system, I don’t know how to respond.

Because naturally, I think we all have a tendency when our needs aren’t being met, to meet them ourselves. Sometimes we choose destructive ways. Sometimes we choose ways that aren’t bad, but they also aren’t the best.

I think that I’m afraid right now that I’m going to choose the less-than-the-best ways of meeting needs – like I’m going to stop waiting on God & try to do it my own way. And even if I continue to submit to God, and seek for him to meet my needs, will I really know if the options that come into my life are from him? Do I see every person that meets my needs as being from him, or only certain ones?

Always when I get to this point, I throw up my hands, and say to God – God, this is the path that I’m walking right now. I so desperately want to be on the right path, doing the right thing. But I have limited knowledge & understanding. I don’t know what I’m doing, or if I’m missing out on something important. Please know that if I’m doing something wrong - it’s not because I mean to. I really just want to follow you, and bring glory to you, and help others to know you. So if there’s something else you want me to do, some other direction you want me to go… please show me clearly, in a way that I won’t miss it. I want to do it your way, not my own.