2012

Its a new year and Im hungry for forward motion. Im desperate for it.

Last year about this time I asked God what 2011 was going to be about and he told me to smile. Smile at people before church, smile when my customers come in, smile when a friend needs me and smile when a brother or sister in Christ falls. I tried to smile in 2011 and I think it worked. Through that very small action, that tiny muscular tension I found a whole new side of God that I was missing. I found relationships and the fruits that are produced by cultivating a friendship that has no boundary set on good or bad, profitable or un-profitable. I found that I looked at the world through pain that I thought I had healed from only to find out that I had found a new and very clever way to bury it. God is good and planted such a tiny seed in my mind that grew into strength through Him. He just smart and shouldn’t be messed with. Smile… how simple and elegant a solution that through God becomes powerful, mountain moving, tsunami creating energy. I was transformed by that.

I woke up this morning with a heavy heart for what some of my friends are going through. What they are going through effects me and that effect on me had let resentment build up and so on and so forth. At the end of all the “so on’s” I found myself pretty frightened of how the whole things would turn out. Where was I going to live? How was I going to get to work and most importantly at the time, how was I going to live comfortably without my current set of safety blankets. God showed me to Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost… blog and it showed me to Hebrews 11. This bit of text is encouraging and used pretty often. It the “faith is the substance of things hoped for” bit… you know the one. Mr. Chambers didn’t focus on the popular part. He focused on vs. 8′s artfully written last phrase “,not knowing whither he went”. The verse goes as such for context:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should receive after as an inheritance, they obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. Hebrews 11:8.

This chapter is kind of like a compilation of great faith acts recounted in one place. This is seemingly custom designed for my situation much like a Dr Scholl’s shoe insert for my heavy heart. Enoch was in their, Noah, Sara and Abel; a real who’s who of faith TED talkers. I needed it. I want my problems to be intelligent and above the day to day and I try my hardest to make them that way but it always goes down this same tree. I think its someone else causing me pain then I blame my self, then I realize that my relationships aren’t good. As I try to fix my relationships I find a deficiency in faith and a distrust for Gods ineffable plan that I constantly mistake for human plans in my mind. I have to get it out of my head that I am more complicated than other people. We all have the same problems; fear, jealousy, insecurity, anger and all of these stem from questioning a completely incomprensible level of perfection.

Luckily all of this happened in a short period of time. This kind of stuff used to knock me out for a month or two, burning bridges as I went.Ruining relationships and eventually crippling me socially but God helped me catch it early and I thank him so much for it. Hes just too good to me. Its unbelievable. I don’t deserve it at all. Jesus hung on that cross and defeated this and that means so much to me.

Thank you Jesus for defeating this and drawing out your perfection on a map that some how I am following to you. Keep my feet on the line between two points. Make the path wider and my focus more acute to see where to stand and build my faith through whatever will accomplish the task you see fit for me. I want to do these things and become better, more apt for your will and useable in your plan. I just let myself get in the way. I need you to keep me above water. Thank you so much for sweating out my sin and letting it be cleansed when all I did was spit in your face. Your patience and understanding are irrational to me but if not for them I would be condemned. Complete the work you have for me now and begin the new work for 2012 that you see fit. Ignore my plans, infact delete my plans from my mind and insert your own. I want to follow that and that alone. Please keep me focused this year. Let me hear you and feel you. Help my hands to move in yours and bring peace to insatiable mind. Bring me Your security, Your joy and Your timing so that the false versions that I create for myself are not given time to sprout thoughts. Thank you for 2011 God, I can’t wait to see what you do in 2012.

Advertisement