Empyting

I’ve been reading a book about emptying oneself in order to make room for what God wants to do in and through our lives.  Must admit the self reflection has been revealing and emotionally exhausting at times.  Yet there has been, and is continuing to be, a cleansing very much like the summer rains I used to run in as a kid.  Did you ever do that?  Remember the fresh gentle rain falling on your warm skin?  Remember the relief from the heat and rejuvenation that came with the rain?  It recharged us to the point we could have run around until midnight with the energy that came from those rains.

This same kind of cleansing can come when we honestly ask the Lord to reveal things we have not let go from our past or dreams and hopes we are tight-fistedly holding onto for our future.  The wounds we never allow to heal from our past prevent us from using those as lessons in order to turn our past into opportunities to help someone else that is going through the same difficulty today.  The hopes and dreams we have do not need to hold our present in bondage if we allow the Lord to have those.  The harder we grip the less energy we have to live our today.  The harder we manipulate and work to have those dreams come to pass, the less we enjoy living our today.  We will never truly know if those dreams are planted in our hearts by the Lord until we release and allow God to fulfill his timing and his purposes in our lives. 

For me, I am learning there is a freedom in realizing I don’t have to know my future but rather trust that God will direct my current today to join paths with my future hopes and dreams.  Today I want to be open and prepared to hear God speak or see Him move in me and those around me.  Who knows, someone I come across today just may be that divine appointment from God to give clarity of his purposes for either me or them. 

Don’t dismiss the ‘outside’ appearance of a chance meeting.  God sometimes uses the most unlikely candidates to speak into each other’s life.

Philippians 1:6,2:3-4; 3:13; Jeremiah 29:11

Change

God created me at my core a unique individual, just as he has you, for his purposes and to bring him glory.  Period. 

His purpose and plan may change from time to time, day to day, and perhaps even moment to moment; our response can be interesting, adventurous and yet confusing and defiant—not on God’s part but ours or more specifically mine. 

Just the time I get comfortable it seems he changes the game plan AND without consulting me! 

Could this ‘change’ be the refreshing everlasting water[i] constantly flowing in and through me rather than stagnant and unyielding water I tend to gravitate to?  At heart, I am a very private person and like my time and my ways.  But I’m coming to realize God did not create me for…well, me.  That is not to say we don’t need quiet and/or alone times to refresh and be rejuvenated.  I’m talking about the avoidance of others just because I don’t feel like interacting or feel like changing my plans. 

Could it be that chance meeting was an ordained crossing of two paths God orchestrated for encouragement, healing or salvation?  Perhaps it was to be the exact moment in time for God’s glory to be revealed to one who is desperately seeking someone higher than their thoughts and ways.  Could it be God wants to teach me rather than the person I come across something or open my eyes in an area I have shut? 

I recently read that God could have created us with incorruptible bodies and morally flawless character but instead he created us out of dirt—clay.  Why?  So it would be absolutely obvious that anything of eternal value accomplished through our lives is from God and not from us[ii] (2 Corinthians 4:7).   

So in the end, it’s realizing my comfort is not God’s purpose for my life.  OUCH!!  Obedience and surrender are not popular topics nor are they to come from a defeatist attitude.  Obedience and surrender are costly.  They are also at the heart of understanding and accepting who God is, why he created me and how he takes great pleasure in my partnering with him for the amount of years he has given me to live.   

So at times it is with kicking and throwing tantrums that I surrender.  And with a grateful heart God doesn’t treat me as my sins deserve[iii] but rather with grace he loving opens his arms and walks beside me--wherever that may be.  Am I to do anything less for those around me? 

What about you?  Where are you in your process or should I say progress?

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[i] http://www.youversion.com/bible/John.7.38.nlt

[ii] Becoming A Vessel God Can Use by Donna Partow (pg 78)

[iii] http://www.youversion.com/bible/Ps.103.10.nlt