“I’m not cut out for that ministry.” She said, reluctant to tell me “No.” “Maybe not,” I replied hoping to convince her that I felt God wanted to use her despite what she thought. “But how will you know unless you try? God often seeks out people unqualified; He often is seeking to push us outside our comfort zones, what is impossible with us is totally possible with God.” She squirmed a little, looked at me a reluctantly and said politely, “Well, I’ll pray about it.”
So many Christians in our day and age wonder what God’s will is for their lives. When we read Jeremiah 29:11, we wonder what plans God has for our lives. Sadly, we’ve somehow been lead to believe that we must grope about in the darkness for this secret plan God must be hiding from us, since we don’t know what it is. The first problem with this subconscious view on our lives is that if God had a specific plan for us, why would He hide it from us? If He truly loves us, which I do believe—would He hide His plan for our good from us, if we needed to know it to somehow follow it??
To me, the “PLAN” was falling apart, this was not how it was supposed to go. But let’s remember, that God’s definition of “good” isn’t always our definition of “good”. See when I think of “good” I think “happy”, “comfortable”, “cool”, “not-stressful”. But see often God’s good plan for my life is for the good of my character, and He knows that my character won’t get stretched and I that I won’t grow if I’m always “comfortable” and never “stressed”. “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)
The flag bearer was near the head of the army, and the soldiers knew that if he was advancing, they should too, if he was retreating, they should retreat too. Because of this, the enemy would always target the guy with the flag. Because if the flag fell, the soldiers didn’t know which way to run, they would fall into confusion not knowing whether they were advancing or retreating. If you were the guy with the flag, you might as well have had a big huge red target on your jacket as everyone was gunning for you.
When you set your alarm for the morning, you intend to sleep soundly through the night so that when you awaken to your alarm, you are rested and ready to tackle a new day. However, you’re awaken by an unusual culprit: whether it be the garbage truck making short work of the dumpster outside your apartment, a neighbor’s dog who is looking to scare a squirrel witless or a strange dream that causes you to wake up in a cold sweat, you find your sleep disrupted by an unexpected wake up call.
Often we find in our lives that God is nowhere to be found. We cannot see Him, we cannot smell Him, we cannot taste Him or feel Him. Yet He is there. We know this because if we’re still for long enough we can feel the effects of Him working and moving in our lives. Jacob wrote, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
A girl to be married was given the promise of a child. With risk of rejection, she raised her courage to tell the man to whom she was betrothed to be married. “The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you….Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.’”…His time had now come.
I often wonder at the tangled mess that makes up a person’s personality, character, quirks, expressions and interactions. What are the experiences that they have gone through, the pains they’ve felt, the joys they’ve shared, the tears they’ve cried, the passions they live for and the hurts they carry that cause them to be who they are. Finding out this information is like finding the keys to unlocking who someone really is-one finds out what really makes someone “tick” so to speak.
I was driving home the other night and it was pretty late. I noticed a U-Haul truck sitting outside the apartment building next to mine. I noticed a man who sat down on the back of the U-Haul truck looking discouraged and exhausted. I could really relate to him having just moved out east to New England from Chicago just six months ago. The whole process of moving is exhausting enough, but almost worse is the discouragement found from moving to a new part of the country where you know almost no one.
Every single morning you get up you get dressed. Most people spend a significant amount of time in front of the mirror every morning before going to school or work or to hang out with friends. You probably check yourself over before leaving your house every day to make sure you look good and there’s nothing wrong with what you’re wearing. But do you consider what attitude you’re wearing when you leave your home every morning?