Tag: Christian

What’s Going On God? – pt. 5

Confrontation and Transformation.  Two extremely important components to God’s plan in our lives.  God always reveals His plans for us to bring us to the place where we are willing to see ourselves for who we are, including all the parts we don’t want to see, so that He can transform us into the image of Jesus and accomplish His purposes through us.   Things happen TO me, So that things can happen IN me, so that things can happen THROUGH me.

Our circumstance that each one of us face are tools which God uses to draw out of us the areas in our lives that need to be shown to us, and so that He can change us.  If we are unwilling to see ourselves as we are, we won’t change because we won’t see the need to.  People all around the world have the same response when confronted with change.  “Well I’m a good person…”  If we don’t see the need for change, we cannot make the changes necessary, and if we don’t make the changes or allow God to make the changes in us we will miss out on the purpose we were created to fulfill.  So God allows circumstances in our lives to draw out of us the things we are often so good at hiding.

There are two things necessary in our lives for this process to accomplish what God desires in us.  We each face different circumstances, and many of them can be extremely difficult to deal with, but we all need two things if God is going to be able to use the circumstances to accomplish His purpose.

The first is a humble heart.  Without humility we will be unwilling to see the areas of our lives that need to be addressed.  Without humility we will be focused completely on getting what we feel we deserve.  Humility allows us to see things differently and be willing to set aside our plans and purposes.  Humility allows us to be willing to see the need for change and to accept the work of God in our lives, even when we are not always able to comprehend or understand what He is doing.   It is a humble heart that will allow God to confront us and change us.  Saul was proud and didn’t respond to the dealings of God, but every time God dealt with David he responded with humility and God was able to do amazing things in and through him.

If you think you know better than God you will won’t respond to His work in your life.  Denying the changes in your life does not make them any less important or necessary to our growth.  Denial is not a river in Egypt. If we insist on denying the reality of our lives we will never see the possibility of our future. 

Humility also releases the hand of God in our lives.  If we want to struggle and fight on our own God is willing to let us, but He would prefer if we allowed Him to mold and form us.  James 4:6 NKJV“God resists the proud,  But gives grace to the humble.”  God offers us His grace if we are willing to be humble.  Grace is “the transforming power of God, doing in you what you cannot do for yourself.”  God’s power working in your life, accomplishing God’s plan.  Without grace we would all be lost.  If we are willing to humble our hearts, God is able to accomplish great things in our lives, and through our lives.

Second we need a close relationship with God.  It is our relationship with Jesus that draws us into God’s plan for our lives, and it is what sustains us as we move forward into God’s purposes.  It is our relationship  with God that allows us to

  • feel and be secure in the love and safety of the hands of God regardless of our circumstances
  • allow God to deal with us knowing He is doing it for our benefit and not His.
  • allow God the freedom to work out the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

     

     

No relationship = No change

Are we keeping our relationship with God current?  Jesus said in John 15:5 NLV “I am the Vine and you are the branches. Get your life from Me. Then I will live in you and you will give much fruit. You can do nothing without Me.”  It is our relationship with God that allows His life to flow in us, and it is His life in us that allows the changes to happen. 

Every move and promise of God in our lives always leads us to the cross of Calvary.

We always return to face our reality and our choice is whether we take up our cross and follow or turn away to our own path.

  • God always brings confrontation for a season to bring transformation for a reason.
  • Things happen TO me, So that things can happen IN me, so that things can happen THROUGH me

There is always a divine purpose to the struggles we have.

What will make the difference will be our focus.

Are we looking at our circumstances or the One who will see us through our circumstances.   It is a humble heart and a relationship with God that allows us to focus not on the problem but on the one who will see us past the problems.

“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.”  Hebrews 12:2 MSG

 

Share the journey

shapeimage_2The journey to become who we were created to be is a powerful and life changing one.  It is unfortunately one that many people miss out on taking.  They become whoever their world, situation or friendships demand, and miss completely out on the adventure they were created for.  Once you start the journey, your life begins to shift, and things that you thought were once important often begin to fade away because your filters for life have changed.

As you journey you get to see yourself and others differently, and you become more accepting of others because you are becoming more secure in who you are so when others are different they no longer cause you to be uncomfortable or threatened.  It truly is an amazing journey that all of us should be on.  The world would be a much different place to live if we did.  As we journey we write about who we are becoming and the changes we are making because we understand ourselves better when we write about it.  Our journals begin to record the milestones along the way and we understand ourselves and our environment better.

Just as important as journaling is for us to understand ourselves, is sharing your journey with someone else.  Finding someone you can be honest with, and who can be honest with you is invaluable to discovering yourself.  We can come to some understanding by writing, but it pales in comparison to the depth of understanding we gain by sharing our journey.  Finding someone you can trust openly and begin to share your struggles, insights and victories helps you to process deeply who you are and their questions and insights as you share help you discover what changes you could be making.

Someone once said You don’t truly understand something until you try to teach it to someone else. The process of sharing anything that you think you understand deepens you level of understanding because you have to take that mess of information, sort it out, repackage it and organize it in a way that someone else can understand.   By having to help someone else understand your journey you open the door to you understanding you.

When we are trying to explain something to someone else, we are forced to ask ourselves the most important question in leaning… in gaining true understanding… “why.” When we have to answer the question “why,” superficial understanding won’t do. We have to know something deeply in order to not just say how, but why.  Why we are is just as important as who we are and who we are becoming.  Only by sharing the journey with someone else can we truly and deeply understand ourselves.

Seeing the sights

one thingInside each and every one of us is a wonderful person the world is desperately wanting to know.  Every day all around us are people that have incredible talents and gifts that often go completely unseen and unknown, and the world is worse off for it.  So much potential that goes unused and unnoticed.

The world doesn’t need more carbon copies of others.  It doesn’t matter if they were the greatest person around.  What the world needs is people who are willing to be authentic, and allow their potential to be lived fully.  This comes by knowing yourself, your limitations, your talents and giftings and being secure enough in who you are that there is no need to “fit another mold”.  We were created unique and special.  Every person born is important and has a wonderful potential.   There has been and never will be another you, and if your life goes unlived because you were trying your best to fit in or measure up the world will have lost a great treasure.

Coming to know yourself is a journey.  It isn’t something that happens overnight.  In fact because we are developing and growing it is a journey that is continually ongoing.  Everyone of us needs to be going on that journey.  This is done with a lot of soul-searching, and thought spent deciding why we do things, what we love to do, what we are passionate about.  It involves analyzing motives to understand the reasons for behaviors we have.  Many of our behaviors are a result of our childhood, and often they are self-protection mechanisms that have completely outlived their usefulness and are now just keeping us from become ourselves.

This journey isn’t easy at times.  In fact it can be painful as we come to understand things about ourselves that we won’t necessarily like.  But the rewards for going on the journey exponentially exceed any discomfort we may go through.  The world around us needs people who know who they are.  There are a lot of people compensating, calculating and even being like a chameleon and changing themselves to fit the expectations of those they relate to.  Very few people are truly self-aware and confident in who they are and what they are gifted to do.

So it is an important journey for all of us.  The big thing is that we need to enjoy the journey.  Every journey we take in life has its ups and downs.  The car breaks down, tires go flat, engines overheat, flights are delayed or cancelled, traffic jams cause us to be late.  Everywhere we turn there will always be joyous highs and heart breaking lows.  Unfortunately it is a facIMAG0157t of life.

But even with the lows and high the journey can be worth while and very memorable.  I recently traveled to Turkey and Armenia, and there were difficulties and frustrations.  There were highs and lows, but the memories will stay with me for a life time.  It is the same when we journey to knowing ourselves.  The journey was meant to be enjoyed.  It will be hard at times, definitely life changing, and an incredible release of burdens we hang on to, and passions we have bottled up.  We are all worth knowing.  That is the way God created us.  But to be known we have to know.  I need to know myself so I can share myself with the world I live in.  If you haven’t started your journey, it is never ever to late.  Every journey begins with a single step.  Just enjoy the journey and see where it takes you. journey enjoy