Our purpose, His path

Many times we are right about the purpose God has for us but the path He chooses to get us there is often very different than what we hoped or believed they would be. Joseph had a series of dreams as a young boy where God gave him visions of his purpose. Joseph was so excited, so in awe of the vision of his future that he told his whole family, multiple times. He knew God was going to use him in a significant way. I'm pretty sure Joseph wasn't quite as thrilled with the path that God used to bring him into that purpose, though.

When God starts to show us what our purpose will be,  His goal is to build our faith and give us hope for the future He has for us. What He isn't concerned with doing is giving us the details. If He did that,  it wouldn't be a journey of faith and We would never come to know and love the God of our purpose more than our purpose itself. Of course, as is our human nature,  we instantly become lead detectives in our own Sherlock Holmes mystery and spend much of our time figuring out just how God is going to bring what He has shown us to past. This is where Satan is often able to derail people from the purpose God has for them.

We often times get so caught up with doing our best to make our own path to get where God has shown us we're going or trying to figure out which path God is going to use that it becomes more about the path than the purpose. In our minds, we equate one with the other and when the path isn't clear or the path we've formulated doesn't work out ,we think the purpose God showed us is doomed to the same fate. This is what we must learn, though - God has many different paths to get you to your purpose . Chances are that at some point, in some way, the path you started on to get there will not be the path that you arrive on when you step into the fullness of your purpose. Many things can alter our path - our mistakes, the enemy's schemes,  God's sovereignty, and the fact that we happen to live in an imperfect and fallen world. When a path doesn't work out, The key is to hold onto the purpose.

There's actually beauty to be found in a path crumbling before our feet because One of the main ways we come to truly believe In and not doubt the purpose God has given us is that even though a path we hoped would work out,  doesn't - the purpose within our hearts doesnt dissapear. After the disappointment of being wrong about the path fades, we find that the passion and belief for the purpose still remains deep within our heart and spirit.

Hold tightly to your purpose but loosely to the path that you are hoping gets you there. In Psalm 138 it says "God will fulfill His purpose for me. " but it doesn't say He will fulfill the path we want to take us there. Let's always make sure our faith is in God and the purpose He has for each of us. Let's rest in His goodness and trust the paths He chooses to get us there.

How are you feeling?

Have you noticed how much we all talk about our energy level throughout the day or the week? It really is crazy if you take a second to list just a few of the phrases we use - "Im so excited!", "I'm completely exhausted", I'm feeling totally refreshed!", "I feel like I'm running on empty". We tend to do this just in passing conversation as a declaration of our current emotional, physical, or mental state. Other times we explain how much gas is left in our proverbial tanks in response to being asked how we're doing or how the week is going for us in some area.

This is just human nature, and we all do it. It's just part of who we fundamentally are that we need to express how we feel at times. The problem with this can be that if we're not careful, how we feel can dictate where we're going in life and how succesful we "feel" we are at getting there, especially in our walk with Christ.

Emotions are an awesome part of who we are, given to us by God. They are often the reason that we feel like God is right beside us, giving us a giant bear hug in that incredible moment of worship or making it seem as if the message preached by the Pastor was a personal love letter written by God, just to us. He certainly knows how to flood our senses with His love. The danger in this, is to become so reliant on where our "spiritual feeelings meter" is at the moment, that our emotions shift from being an aid to help us on our journey to a progress report of the journey itself.

If we allow this to happen, we usually have thoughts similar to these - "well, I havent had a moving experience in worship in two weeks now, I guess I'm not as on fire as I was a few weeks ago." or "I just haven't been as excited to have my devotional time recently as I was last month. When we focus too much on thoughts like these, we are actually checking with our emotions to detrmine the current state of our relationship with Christ. This is what we all need to realize early on in our walk with Christ, though - Feelings should never be used to determine or measure our faithfulness. I fear we spend to much time from week to week worrying about where our feelings are at based on some imaginary spiritual thermometer  (Am I on fire?, why am I not as excited about praying this morning as I was yesterday?) that we often time forget that Jesus didn't call us to feelings, He called us to faithfulness.

Let's not forget that we would all be without the forgiveness that came from Jesus' death if He had decided wheter or not to go to the cross based on how he felt that night in the garden. He didn't want to go through with it; that was how He felt. He did go through with it; that was His faithfulness. We are saved today because of the latter, not the former. 1 John 3:20 says "For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything." In other words, we can"t always trust our feelings.

Never let the enemy convince you that how you feel at the moment is a direct indication of where you're at in your walk with God. Feelings are fleeting but our faithful actions day in and day out, in times of joy and sorrow, in times of being on fire and feeling like we're on empty, that faithfulness stands as a monument before God. That's what matters and I'm sure He would tell each of us "you're doing better than you feel like you are." I hope we can all remind ourselves in the coming days that our journey with God is filled with so many awesome moments of elation, joy, and passion but if we haven't felt that in a while, don't stop to dwell on it too much. Just stay on the road of faithfulness and I promise you, more of those moments are in your future.

Running room

I long to run. Im looking for room. I'm desperately praying for running room. I want to go running with your name held high, but I have yet to come to the door, the door that leads to the place. A place of purpose being fulfilled and possibilities becoming reality. where I can stretch your banner wide and display your glory afar. I know there's purpose in the stillness and growth in the darkness but if your word gives light, let it shine in my night. Let it shine so I can see the plans you have for me. Shine just bright enough that I can catch a glimpse of all you have in store. so that I can see a path to the open door. Because I'm longing to run. I'm looking for room. I'm desperately praying for running room. Help me see all I have. Help me call it good. Show me I'm blessed in the waiting, even when it feels like being trapped in a room. Am I in the waiting room?  Or am I still under the knife?  Maybe I'm not waiting on God. Maybe God is waiting on me to fully come to life.  Waiting on this new heart He put in me to beat more in rhythm with His. Not to the old rhythm I knew but to a life brand new. The abundant life I need within me to fight the fight and run the race. This was His plan all along. His eternal desires placed in my new heart; discovered through  dreams that He designed from the start. His heart within me is the very reason why I long to run, I'm looking for room. I'm desperately praying for running room.

His truth Vs. My reality

God has really shown me the past few weeks that submitting to His word is not just submission to His principles and standards. It is submission to who His word says we are and what His word says He wants us to have. If the reality of my life in any area is contrary to the truth of what God's word says, how am I responding? Am I bowing down to what I see and accepting my reality or am I submitting to His word and saying " I refuse to accept  what I see instead of humbling myself and saying "what I see is so small in comparison to who you are. I know your word is the ultimate truth, beyond even what I see and feel. I submit to what it says, I believe it, I cherish it, and I trust in it's power to change my current reality."

It's arrogance on our part to assume that things will never change just because they haven't changed yet. What is any of our situations when confronted with the power of God's word? Change WILL come. If you are willing to STILL believe!  Just stay humble and submitted to what His word says, not what you see and feel. Remember that what we see is only a very small part of the puzzle that God is putting together in our life.

It's very easy to take matters into our own hands after we have tried things God's way and nothing has changed. circumstances haven't changed, people haven't changed, we haven't changed. We tell ourselves "It's just not meant to happen for me". We strike out to make things happen as best we can in our own power or we tell ourselves we'll make the best of our life without that thing we were once so confident that God wanted to do for us.

The truth is though, this is arrogance. It's our human pride convincing us that it's an extremely reasonable and even responsible conclusion to come to when things haven't changed after all this time. We rely on our wisdom and critical thinking
 instead of on God's wisdom and the counsel of His word and Holy Spirit. Just look at those who God used the greatest in the scriptures - they all submitted to God and what He had told them in spite of no change in their circumstances, and they did this for years. Some of them did this for decades.

Let's all take a step back and remember who we are in comparison to who He is and ask ourselves "is that area of my life really hopeless, or have I just grown tired and weary of humbly submitting to the hope found in His word concerning that situation?" It takes energy to believe, to expect, to hope. It takes us submitting our fears and doubts to God and believing that the promises in His word will bring about a change, regardless of how long it has been. I encourage you today to humbly admit that what you see at the moment has no weight in comparison to what His word says and start believing once again to see His truth change your reality, today!

Blessings to you all and "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." 
- Roman's 15:13

Bitterness or hope

    As many of you may know, I lived in Arizona from September of 2014 to March of 2015. What many of you may not know is that it has taken me until now to fully get my footing back in my walk with God from the seven month journey. To be honest - I was deeply disappointed and I was completely and utterly baffled by the ways of God. It was, to say the least, an arduous journey of faith and complete reliance upon God that left me exhausted in pretty much every way that one can be exhausted, especially in my spirit and mind. I'm not writing this to tell you about that journey step by step though or to lament about it in 600 words or less. I'm writing to tell you about what God has shown me now that I'm almost a year removed from being in the dessert, both literally and figuratively.

    To explain to you what God has shown me from all of this I must briefly explain that my trip to Arizona was one of complete faith. There was no logical explanation for going except that God said "Go". Now obviously, there are more details behind why I felt He was telling me to go and of course as we all often do, I had placed certain "expectations" on God for what I thought He was going to do while I was over there. To be fair though, those expectations were the entire reason I believed He was calling me to go in the first place. So, needless to say, after I came back home after seven months of believing and not giving up hope all while being homeless and going hungry at times, I didn't have much hope or faith left. The only way I can describe how I felt  is to imagine someone telling you to wait outside your house for them to pick you up. They promised they would pick you up, and you waited...for seven months. Now before the phrase "well, you were just an idiot comes out of your lips (I can sense it about to roll off your tongue) please realize that there were many times I was ready to give up and come home and God would always reassure me in some way shape or form that I was where I was supposed to be and He would renew my strength to stay. That went on for seven months until He finally told me it was time to come home. No explanation for why nothing I felt He had promised hadn't come to pass in my life. No answers. Simply "you did everything I asked you, you were faithful, I'm proud of you. It's time to go home now." Those words absolutely helped in the moment but they ended up being a tiny drop of solace in a sea of shattered hopes and dreams after I returned home. My mind tried to process what happened while my hands tried to pick up the pieces and move on. Then, just three weeks ago, God walked in my room. Not literally, but in every other way that matters and in the way I desperately needed most. In the form of renewed hope.

     He led me to a story in the Bible that has genuinely given me the strength to get up and believe again. To fight the good fight of faith and hold to His promises once more and is the reason I wanted to write this. See, I told you this was about more than me making you read about my past tales of sorrow!

    In first Samuel chapter 30, David is still on the run from Saul, he has been for quite some time. He was in a season of  hardship, trial and sorrow. In fact, he had even developed a following of loyal men who were also down on their luck in life and were feeling pretty miserable. I should also mention that they all had one thing in common - they were all warriors, men of battle; Kind of like an Emo fight club. They loved to fight. They were good at it, especially David. It's all they had left, the one thing that still brought purpose to their life. In chapter 29 we find that David and His men are told by the commander of  an army that they can no longer fight in battle with them. They are told to return home. The one thing they still found purpose in and probably distracted them from the mess that was life, they could no longer do. This brings us to Chapter 30.
David and the men return home to find their entire village had been looted, torn down, and burned to a crisp. Even worse, every single one of their wives and all of their children had been taken.

Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 1 Samuel 30:1-3

    Can you imagine? you're already in a bad place in life and have been for quite some time, you've already experienced more than your fair share of bad breaks and heart ache and now you have to come home to tell your wife that you just got fired from your job as an "Emo fighter for hire", only to realize that you can't tell your wife because her and your children have been taken alive likely to never be seen again. If David and his warriors were on twitter, I'm pretty sure their hashtags read something like #worstdayever and yes, even #FML...let's just be honest here. The scripture even tells us as much in the next few verses.

Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David's two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. -1 Samuel 30:4-6a

    In case you thought the "FML" hashtag was a bit much on my part, it says in the passage above that the men's weeping quickly turned to bitterness and that they actually talked of killing David, while David was sitting right there with them. So yeah, if you don't like #fml, try these hashtags on for size #deaththreats #murder. They were so spent, so incredibly exhausted beyond belief in every way possible that they wept until they couldn't weep anymore. Then, as is natural for a fighter at heart, their sadness quickly turned to anger and thoughts of revenge. Only, instead of being angry at the people who had kidnapped their family they were angry with David. They wanted to blame the one who brought them out there in the first place. Doesn't that sound like how we choose to act toward God so many times? We don't want to blame the person who broke our heart, we want to blame the one who allowed us to feel like we could trust them in the first place. It's just stupid to blame God when things are clearly your fault but it's much easier to justify blaming Him when you ended up on the bad side of things because you submitted your life to him, you trusted Him and you followed Him. These men entrusted their lives to David, they followed him, fought for him and with him, and now they were paying a far greater price for than they ever wanted to. Yes, they were indeed bitter. And here's where this story comes takes a truly amazing turn...

...But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. 1Samuel 30:6b

     If the men were mad at David, didn't David have every right to be mad at God? Let's briefly take a glance back at David's story up to this point and remember that David had been anointed King of Israel, only to have to go right back to tending sheep. Then David finally gets recognized when he defeats Goliath, only to become public enemy #1 on King Saul's hit list. He flees into the wilderness where he's been for years now, literally running for his life from the very army that he was promised by God He would be King over. Now his only friends in life are talking about killing him. Oh yeah, His wife and kids have also been taken. If that's not enough ammunition to fire a few verbal rounds off at God with, I don't know what is. Yet David did none of this. He did the very opposite of what His men were doing. David ran to God, he took shelter in the presence of God and strengthened himself in the memory of all that God was to Him, in spite of all that was happening. David didn't get bitter. He didn't have a pity party. Yes he cried till he could cry no more but then he turned to God. He didn't get bitter, he humbled himself in the presence of God. He didn't demand  answers. He just asked for strength. And a funny thing happened once he got a proverbial shot of hope in his veins...

And David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them and without fail recover all.” 1 Samuel 30:8

    Isn't it funny how no one had even mentioned going after their wives or kids until this point? I believe there's a reason for this. Remember what time period this took place in. There is no police force to report a kidnapping to, and no faster form of transportation to make up the ground that was already between them and the army that had taken their family. To all of David's men, their family was as good as dead and David had no reason to think otherwise himself...until. Until he strengthened himself in God. God breathed life back into His spirit and clarity back into his mind. He went from thinking "they are dead, or as good as dead. we will never find them." to remembering back at all the times God had given him victory in seemingly impossible situations. He remembered the lion and the bear. He remembered Goliath. He remembered His God. And then he said "Lord!!... Shall I pursue them?!!" I imagine him saying it like this because now, David was angry; not at his men but at the true enemy in this situation. It was a righteous and godly anger. God told him to pursue and recover all he and his men had lost. Remember, this wasn't their favorite sword that had been stolen. It was their family, their entire life, their hopes and dreams.

    I shared this story to share what God showed me through this. Both about my time in Arizona and all of us as believers and followers of Christ. When you really follow God and you have the type of faith to believe Him for incredible things, you will experience incredible times of disappointment, confusion, and heartache. Not because God isn't faithful but because we live in a broken world and we have an enemy who was described by Jesus Himself as being one who "comes only to steal, kill, and destroy". That's just the truth of it and David knew this. He had accepted it. He had moved past blaming God for what hope or dream didn't happen or what bad did happen. He saw God, not as the person he didn't know if he could trust or not with his life, he didn't see him as the source of all his pain, but he saw God as the person who could help him recover all that the enemy had stolen. He saw Him as he did one of his fellow warriors. He was in this war with Him. God was on His side and His God was the one that was going to help him rise from the ashes, shake off the dust and find strength to fight again. This is what you all need to know - The enemy cannot kill your God given dreams. Satan can not kill the purposes and promises God has for your life. Your dreams ARE NOT dead...but your hope might be. Satan tries to "steal" our dreams and then kill our hope for them, causing us to think they are indeed dead or that we will never see them happen. If it had not been for David finding strength in God and renewing his hope to fight for what had been stolen David and His men would have likely never seen their families again. The enemy would have won. Their families would've indeed been as good as dead to them...but God. The next time you feel as if your dreams have been destroyed or the promises of God for your life are dead; don't ask "why God?", stand up and declare with resurrected hope "but God!"