Hear these words before?
Speak these words before?
I have.
Here's the problem: as I search the Scriptures, I can find very few people who knew their life plan ahead of time in any amount of significance...
I wonder if maybe God doesn't care as much about His will for us as much as He cares about our hearts being abandoned to His Spirit...About us being open to hearing the Spirit and acting on it, rather than sitting in one spot, waiting for an epic voice from heaven to tell us our life plan, mapped out in front of our eyes...
Let me share my dream(s) with you. I would absolutely love, I mean absolutely love if I could be in a band with some guys, touring around, spreading the news of God in music scenes that do not hear about the love of Christ very often...I have a passion for it...I have a little God-given talent in it...But does God want me to do it?
Ah.
Here enlies a problem...with all of us...
We sit paralyzed in fear that we would make a mistake and accidentally miss God's exact plan for our lives and head down that "just not quite the will of God" road forever...So we sit and do not move...
But have you thought about the next twenty minutes? And what God wants you to do in that time? See, it seems safer for us to commit to God SOMEDAY instead of TODAY.
Living for God out of fear of disappointing Him or missing the mark is way off...Yes we should fear God in reverence, but we should not fear that we will let him down with our decisions in life...We are going to anyways...We are human...Living in fear of failure is the quickest path to uselessness...
Uselessness in the sense that people create their own plan, then ask God to join them on it...As if God is their puppet and "feel-good" button...No one in Scripture who is a great person in the Bible lived a safe life that required little faith and trust in God to work in crazy situations...
See, we are never promised a certain plan of action for so many years...But we are promised to never be forsaken or left by God...
Instead of searching for the will, we need to be searching for the Spirit.
Once again, my DREAM right now, is to take music and do something crazy with it and see God move through it...To write and "perform" only to show people there is someone greater behind it all...To hold a microphone and/or guitar and jump and scream around whatever stage area exists for that night...Is this passion and dream something God instilled in me? Or did I create it out of my fleshly desire?
But at what point does God stop caring about what you are doing as long as you are doing it completely for Him?
Don't get me wrong, I believe God has things he has ordained for us, He says so in Scripture...But He never promises to reveal them all at once, in advance...
Yes, trust is hard. Yes, patience is not easy to obtain all the time.
But you show me an example where God has let someone down in an eternal way, and I will say that trusting God is not worth it...
Until then, I will continue to chew on this "will" thing...
"Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us. He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow Him to the cross, to eternal life."
-"FORGOTTEN GOD" by: Francis Chan
12 comments:
Beautiful blog. You can make more money with your blog.
http://hd4you.blogspot.com/
This is a good blog NotAlone. Sometimes I think we look to hard for a God that we wish would speak audibly so we'd know His will every time. He does speak through His word now, so we have to keep searching the scriptures.
My best shot is to believe if I try something new...if He's in it , it will be successful..if not...I move on.
I can feel the pain in what you wrote.
I invite you to follow my blog as I will be following yours.
By the way...I'd like to see close ups of your ink.
Good. Good-good-good. Now try to tell a freshman this, and you'll see just how personal this revelation really is. =P
I noticed the Chan quote at the bottom of your blog, because I've been reading a really good book, too. "The Great Omission" by Dallas Willard. He talks a lot about how we have a tendency to freeze in grace (since of course, we already have it) and not live the way Jesus did. I think this blog and that book have a lot in common.
Beautiful Blog..
Mine.
Http://MagicJimmy0420.blogspot.com/
:)
I enjoyed reading the posts on your blog. I would like to invite you to come on over to my blog and check it out. God's blessings. Lloyd
I absolutely LOVE your way of thinking, it relates to a lot of people,, and everybody at some point in their life.
Just make sure you don't say "we" so many times, it sounds like you're preaching at people. Look at the flaws in your own life, and use them as examples, and say "I need to look to God more" "I need to change"..etc...
Keep it up, Jake, I enjoy your writings immensely!
Jake, I invite you to follow my blog as I do yours.
I like your blog! Well written and easy to read.
Just started my own.. Drop by if you have time someday.
If not, keep up the good work. Will be back to read more of yours!
Jake, I invite you to follow my blog as I do yours..thank ya
Jake, I invite you to follow my blog as I do yours..thank ya
Pretty cool blog.
Thanks for sharing.
I pray your blog will deeply plant seeds in hearts of viewers/readers who pass your way; and, that it also waters seeds in others as time goes on.
God Bless.
God has talked to me through you!
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