Tag: bible

Christian

Reaching Certainty Through Surrender

Highlighting Hope

I think that embedded in all of our hearts is a desire for certainty. It may seem in vain to have this desire because what aspects of life are certain?

Although uncertainty is true for this life, it is not true for God, and a having a misplaced source to fill this desire for certainty will only cause us to experience heightened insecurities, doubts, fears, and emptiness. The control over our lives that we seek to have results only in an increased deficit of control, which is the opposite of what we are seeking. I know this to be true because I have been there and I will admit to being a first-hand witness.

I sought after this control over my life. I thought I was grabbing a good dose of certainty and direction when I went off to college for the first time. I went as far from home as I could go without leaving the state. I was going to fix my life and things were about to get better for me, so I thought. I was going to make a big turnaround and finally do things the right way, but the, “do things right” part was short lived- if ever lived at all.

This pursuit only left me empty and lost. My insecurities continued to grow with each passing day. There were moments when I attempted to pray that God would intervene and change my heart and life. I knew that I was stuck in a life and rhythm of doing things my way, and even though its results only offered more emptiness, I struggled with wanting to leave it.

Months later, God did answer those halfhearted prayers. He flooded my heart with conviction and brokenness. I experienced His presence for the first time in a way that is truly indescribable. It’s what happened next though that really surprised me. That day, God called me to leave that college and go back home. Upon that call, so many questions filled my mind. How could I quit college in the middle of spring semester? What would my parents say? What would people think? Is this really the right thing to do? As God’s heavy urge to simply “go home” grew louder, the questions began to fade away. That day I withdrew from that school and took my first step towards true certainty even though I didn’t know what would lie ahead of me and so many of my questions were still left unanswered.

Our insecurities and uncertainties about life and all that it beholds will always be trumped and silenced by God’s call; but this is only true if we choose to obey His call. Obedience to God, whether or not we understand all the aspects of the “where and why” He is leading us a certain way, solves a lot of our problems.

Honestly, it was gut-wrenching to go from “my way” to “His way”. In the end, the control I thought I had, and the ability to self-fix only served to keep me enslaved to emptiness, disappointment, and heart ache. Sometimes we seek out this grand formula to follow and if we can’t find one, we create our own.

The plan for us to follow though is simple- it’s simply surrender. Surrendering to God’s call and walking in obedience to Him was the first plan He had in place, and abandoning it the Garden of Eden is where all the trouble began. Obedience to God solves the true root of our problems, and it will always provide us with the true certainty we are longing for.

Christian

Our Fulfillment Must Come From the Task-Giver, Not the Task!

Highlighting Hope

There is no doubt that God uses the pains and scars from the past for a greater good and purpose, and as well as a means to give us new sight. I have watched God’s light give beauty to my painful memories, but I have to tread very carefully to keep the painful memories of my past in full view of His light, because without His light, they just become painful memories.

God longs to use what was once difficult, or what may be currently difficult, as a powerful opportunity to give a testimony of His work in our lives; but in our opportunities to serve and make Him known, they are not to be used for the purpose of filling those voids and mending our wounds. The voids that need to be filled and the healing that needs to take place, must be done by the ‘Task Giver’ (God), not in the task itself.

In the process of giving my all to the tasks God has called me to, I have struggled with the tasks consuming me, and becoming my ‘all in all’ by seeking my fulfillment in these tasks instead of being filled by my ‘Task Giver –  God! When I seek to make God’s calling as the main source of my fulfillment, instead of God Himself, it taints the purity of the task at hand.

Our service to God also shifts when the task and its’ outcome becomes the priority instead of striving to know and honor God first, and allowing the outcomes from our labor to belong to Him! 

We love to see results, but in our service to Him, they do not always look the way we think they should, if we even see them at all! When the results we can see becomes the focus, the ministry God has called us to can quickly become a burden.

Bottom line, God longs for a true and sincere heart that is in service to Him!  He is looking at the motives within our hearts, He longs to be what  fill us up, He longs to be our all in all, and He longs for us to leave the outcomes to Him!

When our mission starts with God, we will find ourselves fueled and ready for the tasks He has laid before us,  with our voids already filled and the burden of results taken from our hands!

“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

Christian

Worship Amongst a Pile of Weeds

Highlighting Hope

Last week, I spent several hours, almost every day, pulling up the many invasive weeds that had found their way into all of the flowers beds surrounding our house… and as strange as it sounds, it was absolutely wonderful. It was a job that I had dreaded at first, but surprisingly, come to love once I got started.

The week was filled with beautiful weather, and the sounds of my children playing happily in the backyard provided me with sounds of peace and enjoyment. For hours each day, I pulled weed after weed, and all the while, I found myself in a state of worship. Dirty gloves on my hands and dirt flinging everywhere as I pulled up each invader, seemed like an unlikely place for worship, but yet for me, this is what it provided.

With each pull, I knew I was a little closer to my desired result, and with each continued pull of weed after weed, I also found myself reflecting on the work that God has done in my life. You can go from person to person and ask them about God, who He is, and what they think of Him, and you will most likely get a different answer from each person. In our culture today, relative truth is more acceptable than absolute truth, and sadly it has many standing on a pile of sinking sand. Regardless of what each person says about God, thankfully there is an absolute truth of who He really is, and it rises above all of our varied opinions.

The truth is, God is the God of great deliverance, the God of restoration, and the God who rescues us from sin. As I pulled and removed each weed, these truths began to flood my heart and mind. Through this reflection, I became overcome with gratitude for God’s work in my life and that He doesn’t leave us as we are.

This God who rescues came to me at a time when my life was overrun with highly invasive weeds, but thankfully this God of deliverance and restoration has a presence that is much more invasive, and He graciously began to remove each invader, one by one. As I saw these weed infested flower beds, I saw a picture of my life, and I couldn’t help but find myself in a state of worship.

As I worked diligently to clean out each area, I was surprised at the weakness and strength that some of these weeds had. Big, huge, and tall growing weeds caught my attention first. I had my spade in hand, ready to dig if necessary, but to my surprise, a simple pull was usually all that was required to remove these types. It was the low growing weeds, the ones that didn’t draw as much attention, that were the ones that were so difficult to remove. These were the ones that required the use of the spade.

The strongholds in our lives vary from person to person, and we all have them. Our greatest struggles often feel the most painful as God works to remove them from our lives, and yet it’s in these places I have seen God’s greatest acts of grace and love in my life. I’m thankful that God doesn’t stop at the weeds in our lives that are easiest to remove, but instead He digs deep to remove the ones with the strongest roots and then fills those gaping holes up with more of Him.

As I continue to recognize the weeds in my life that God is continuing to show me and remove from me, I will kneel in worship to the One who has not left me as I am but is continuously making me new!

Christian

Stop Praying For Victory

Highlighting Hope

We love words like ‘triumphant’ and ‘victory’. There is a sense of accomplishment surrounding these words, and they result in a particular outcome that we are pleased with (and naturally so). As we embark on a new year, new goals will be set that we hope to accomplish in the months to come. Goals are good and they give us something to aim for, something to strive for, and sometimes we set a goal with the end result in mind without even considering the work that will be required to get us to the finish line.

Likewise in our Christian walk, we love to experience victory and we want to share testimonies of how God is working in our lives. We long for success, but we often forget what the true root of victory and success is, and that is obedience. Jerry Bridges says in his book, The Pursuit of Holiness, “We pray for victory when we know we should be acting in obedience… we do not understand the proper distinction between God’s provision and our own responsibility for holiness” Hebrews 12:14 implores us to make EVERY effort to be holy and therefore, effort means we have a responsibility, and that responsibility is obedience.

We oftentimes prefer words like ’triumph’ or ‘victory’ over a word like ‘obedience’, but at the heart of those things is obedience. If we examine the lives of God’s people throughout scripture, you can see some clear patterns.  When did they experience victory? They experienced victory when they were obedient and therefore their victory was a RESULT. When did God’s people experience defeat? They experienced defeat as a RESULT of disobedience.

Friends, nothing has changed! For us to experience true victory today, we must have hearts fully devoted to God and strive for obedience. How different would this upcoming year be if we set our hearts on obedience? How different would this year be if we started working to say “no” to what separates us from God started saying “yes” in our pursuit of being holy? Let’s stop praying for victory when it’s really an act of obedience that is required. May God set our focus on the right things and the right outcome is sure to follow.

May God bless you in 2024!