"Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
but I'm giving in to something heavenly
Time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Revaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow your will
or just climbing aimlessly over these hills
So show me what it is you want from me
I give everything I surrender...To..."
-Sanctus Reel
"Whatever you’re doing”
I find that my prayer is often to be removed from the situation, for God to bring new opportunity and to save me from the frustration and negativity that I face. This morning I was convicted to change the way I pray, to refocus my concept of purpose, and to change my perspective on faith.
If God removed Moses, David, Ruth, Abraham, and Joseph from the circumstances that brought them anxiety, frustration, and pain we would not have witnessed the power, control, and purpose God has for our lives and His kingdom.
Our prayer should be for God to provide us the strength and the courage and the confidence to stand tall in times of trial and in times of animosity. Our purpose here on earth is to be witnesses, to be examples of faith and it is only in times of uncertainty when our strength is not enough that God can truly reveal His power and His purpose in this life. We should not run from adversity or be timid in crisis—these are moments of Faith, these are reflections of our Christian character, these are the moments that define who we believe God to be.
If we have a life always running from pain, then we will have a life that lacks purpose. The Bible says, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world,” John 16:33.
We are guaranteed pain, heartache, confusion, and frustration, but we are also promised peace if we take heart and if we have faith in the promises of God. It sometimes seems to simple to be true but the truth is that we are the ones that complicate faith.
God says “I am” but more often we focus on “I’m not.”
Is your faith in what God can do or in what you can not do?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Exposed
There are days where I feel exposed, vulnerable and raw, days where I’d like to stay inside and hide. The hiding is not from fear or struggle but a genuine desire to keep all that God has been filling me with from overflowing outside of my own control. God gets a hold of our hearts, He shakes our souls, and in tearing down our walls, we can’t help but feel exposed. I hide from outside sources, from complexity beyond spiritual design; I bask and contemplate all that has fallen behind and all that stood the test of time.
The world around us craves exposure, purpose comes from being seen and heard, but what does it mean for me when I crave the calm, when I’m content in my own company and when the only voice I desire is the still small voice of God.
I am ready to shine but not of my own design. I am ready to stand out in front but not unless God is standing behind. This desire of earthly exposure is a platform of fear, but when God is working in our hearts and in our souls, His peace we desire to keep from all that threatens around us.
There is a balance of give and take—too often it falls on the side of take. We put ourselves on platforms to be seen as givers when our true intent is to take from the world all that our selfishness needs. To truly give is to sit in the shadows, it is to listen and not to speak, and it is to stand amongst the fall and to be willing to give your all for all that you can’t fathom or comprehend. It is to be used by God and not by the world.
God calls us to seasons of quiet, seasons of peace, seasons of hibernation because he is storing within us all that the world threatens to take away. It is God who calls us into the light and until those moments in time, I bask in being hidden in His grace, staying safe inside the wonder of His sovereign arms and giving to him all my needs.
When God calls us to ministry the world around us can become busy and full of noise, he gives us seasons of stillness to rest our souls and prepare us for the plans he has for us.
Enjoy the Quiet, Bask in stillness, take rest in the shadows, and embrace the desire to just be in a relationship with God and not the world around.
The world around us craves exposure, purpose comes from being seen and heard, but what does it mean for me when I crave the calm, when I’m content in my own company and when the only voice I desire is the still small voice of God.
I am ready to shine but not of my own design. I am ready to stand out in front but not unless God is standing behind. This desire of earthly exposure is a platform of fear, but when God is working in our hearts and in our souls, His peace we desire to keep from all that threatens around us.
There is a balance of give and take—too often it falls on the side of take. We put ourselves on platforms to be seen as givers when our true intent is to take from the world all that our selfishness needs. To truly give is to sit in the shadows, it is to listen and not to speak, and it is to stand amongst the fall and to be willing to give your all for all that you can’t fathom or comprehend. It is to be used by God and not by the world.
God calls us to seasons of quiet, seasons of peace, seasons of hibernation because he is storing within us all that the world threatens to take away. It is God who calls us into the light and until those moments in time, I bask in being hidden in His grace, staying safe inside the wonder of His sovereign arms and giving to him all my needs.
When God calls us to ministry the world around us can become busy and full of noise, he gives us seasons of stillness to rest our souls and prepare us for the plans he has for us.
Enjoy the Quiet, Bask in stillness, take rest in the shadows, and embrace the desire to just be in a relationship with God and not the world around.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Inspired beyond the Ordinary
Routine blinds the mind of the adventure that lays just beyond. Consumed by ordinary details, by habits, by tasks that fill our to-do lists, we leave little room for the divine inspiration that surrounds our lives beyond our ordinary mindset. It is hope that pulls us beyond our human logic, that forces us to believe there is more than what our human eyes can see.
Fear forces us to think and feel that we toil in vain. We are led to believe that the extraordinary is for those not living in the ordinary. We live with hope just out of reach, with despair in our hands and fear in our hearts.
2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Ephesians 3:19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God
Philippians 4:7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus (NLT)
God calls the ordinary into the extraordinary. As Christians, we are living witnesses of God's power and purpose. It is in our ordinary that He proves that it is only by his grace and power that we can be lifted up from the toil, from the fear and be people of purpose and power for His name and His calling.
The three scriptures above all have a common theme, which is that in this world the knowlege of Christ faces oposition and that there is a power that threatens to keep our peace and clarity from the hands of God. We have to take thoughts captive, we have to go beyond our own human knowlege, and we have to find peace when understanding is out of reach.
Do you live for Christ? Do you live a self-less life and find fulfillment in the peace that passes our own selfish understanding? I tackle these questions every moment of every day. Some live behind the logic that Faith easily washes over us and surrounds us from the moment we accept Christ into our lives until the moment we die but faith is a relationship and it requires work, it requires choices, and it requires trust.
Be Inspired beyond the Ordinary. Live a life of hope and of peace where understanding is found not in routine but in the adventure of not knowing what tomorrow brings but in who brings tomorrow.
Fear forces us to think and feel that we toil in vain. We are led to believe that the extraordinary is for those not living in the ordinary. We live with hope just out of reach, with despair in our hands and fear in our hearts.
2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Ephesians 3:19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God
Philippians 4:7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus (NLT)
God calls the ordinary into the extraordinary. As Christians, we are living witnesses of God's power and purpose. It is in our ordinary that He proves that it is only by his grace and power that we can be lifted up from the toil, from the fear and be people of purpose and power for His name and His calling.
The three scriptures above all have a common theme, which is that in this world the knowlege of Christ faces oposition and that there is a power that threatens to keep our peace and clarity from the hands of God. We have to take thoughts captive, we have to go beyond our own human knowlege, and we have to find peace when understanding is out of reach.
Do you live for Christ? Do you live a self-less life and find fulfillment in the peace that passes our own selfish understanding? I tackle these questions every moment of every day. Some live behind the logic that Faith easily washes over us and surrounds us from the moment we accept Christ into our lives until the moment we die but faith is a relationship and it requires work, it requires choices, and it requires trust.
Be Inspired beyond the Ordinary. Live a life of hope and of peace where understanding is found not in routine but in the adventure of not knowing what tomorrow brings but in who brings tomorrow.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Fight the Fight
Sometimes the fight is not as exciting and attractive as in the movies,
sometimes there is no great prize, there is no great crowd.
More often then not, the fight is lonely, it's not seen by others and the battle is for the everyday things that come easily to someone else.
Battles come in all shapes and sizes but the fight is always the same, one person's victory is another person's adversity. We are all in a battle with the everyday as our enemy and where hope threatens to leave, we fight, we stand, we give our all because without hope there is no strength left in our fight. Hope can not be taken away from those whose hearts are of God--Hope is a blessing that our Savior gives every morning.
Our fight is against the distractions, against that which blinds, its a battle of our focus. The enemy has won when we don't know what we are fighting after, when we throw ourselves without purpose and when we exhaust ourselves and can no longer stand for what we believe in the everyday. Christ is in the every day. He is n the car ride to work, He is in the 8hrs of routine, He is in our thoughts, our dreams--He is a God who inhabits the hearts of his people. Our fight is never alone for He never leaves us--the enemy may distract but our Savior always saves.
Awake to the mornings blessings, fight through the distractions, set your intentions to have a battle of purpose--know the prize.
Your day is not without purpose, never without God, and never without hope.
Never give up the fight.
sometimes there is no great prize, there is no great crowd.
More often then not, the fight is lonely, it's not seen by others and the battle is for the everyday things that come easily to someone else.
Battles come in all shapes and sizes but the fight is always the same, one person's victory is another person's adversity. We are all in a battle with the everyday as our enemy and where hope threatens to leave, we fight, we stand, we give our all because without hope there is no strength left in our fight. Hope can not be taken away from those whose hearts are of God--Hope is a blessing that our Savior gives every morning.
Our fight is against the distractions, against that which blinds, its a battle of our focus. The enemy has won when we don't know what we are fighting after, when we throw ourselves without purpose and when we exhaust ourselves and can no longer stand for what we believe in the everyday. Christ is in the every day. He is n the car ride to work, He is in the 8hrs of routine, He is in our thoughts, our dreams--He is a God who inhabits the hearts of his people. Our fight is never alone for He never leaves us--the enemy may distract but our Savior always saves.
Awake to the mornings blessings, fight through the distractions, set your intentions to have a battle of purpose--know the prize.
Your day is not without purpose, never without God, and never without hope.
Never give up the fight.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
There are no words…
There are no words…Some days there are no words, some would call that writers block, but I think the lack of elegant prose and analogies doesn’t just fall to those who put pen to paper. Some days there are just not words or logic to make sense of all that spins around us, we find ourselves in the center of a busy life, just putting one foot in front of the other. There are days when I can make perfect sense of all that comes my way and then there are other days where I just put up my shield and persevere.
I think we often feel that there must be words in order to find purpose or that a day without perspective is a day without purpose. I know I often beat myself up or think that I am missing the key elements of my life when I don’t have the energy, the time, or the clarity to write what I’m feeling, what I’ve learned, or what God is showing me.
Romans 8:26-27
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
We don’t have to fill the silence with noise, when there are no words there is still meaning. True perseverance and true purpose come when we can take our life in stride one day at a time, when we can make the most of what has been given to us and when there are no words, we can accept that silence does not equate emptiness.
The deepest and truest relationships of my life are the ones where I don’t even have to say a word and yet the other person knows exactly what I’m feeling, there is that bond, that ability to be so connected that the silence does not threaten the relationship. Our relationship with God is no different, the silence does not threaten him, He instead looks into our hearts and hears what our soul speaks, and he in turn communicates with us through nature, through sights, through emotion, more often than not—without a single word.
I think we often feel that there must be words in order to find purpose or that a day without perspective is a day without purpose. I know I often beat myself up or think that I am missing the key elements of my life when I don’t have the energy, the time, or the clarity to write what I’m feeling, what I’ve learned, or what God is showing me.
Romans 8:26-27
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
We don’t have to fill the silence with noise, when there are no words there is still meaning. True perseverance and true purpose come when we can take our life in stride one day at a time, when we can make the most of what has been given to us and when there are no words, we can accept that silence does not equate emptiness.
The deepest and truest relationships of my life are the ones where I don’t even have to say a word and yet the other person knows exactly what I’m feeling, there is that bond, that ability to be so connected that the silence does not threaten the relationship. Our relationship with God is no different, the silence does not threaten him, He instead looks into our hearts and hears what our soul speaks, and he in turn communicates with us through nature, through sights, through emotion, more often than not—without a single word.
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