When people ask you what you are scared of, what comes to mind?? Spiders, death, cockroaches… I usually can’t think anything. I’m just not scared. But then I thought that I must be scared of something. There has got to be at least one thing I’m scared of. So I’ve been thinking on this for a bit (I know this is hard for some of you to imagine… a blonde thinking… deep thoughts… lol)
The first thing I’m sacred of, the most sacred of, has is my long term goal. I am fairly certain, that I am called by God, to work as a missionary. I’m not exactly sure what this is going to look like long term, if I am called to work on the business / organization side of things or if I am called to go live in another country. Never the less, I know that I will know, what I need to know, when I need to know it. I may not have all the answers now (and this is hard for some people) but I know that God will give me the answers and direction when I need them and it may not be that much in advance. Someone once said that God is always on time but seldom early.
Having said all this, my first and biggest fear is that I will get so caught up in the things I have, and the activities I do, that I will forget this and live as the world does, spending money on things I don’t need and going places I don’t have to go. Not that all that is bad, but there is a point were all this is rather sickening.
For example I have just started a job that has been a dream of mine for some time. Something I’ve felt passionate about for a long time, but I wasn’t really sure how to purse such an idea. A good friend of my family’s, told me about this opportunity and I applied and was accepted. I am so thrilled by this and so bless that God would choose and allow me to be used in such a way, that it brings me to tears. It is a dream that I believe God placed there for a reason and he is fulfilling this dream and it amazing.
I am however, still afraid that I will get distracted by the carrying out of this dream, that I will forget what I am called to do. Yes, I know that I will love working at this new place. I’m afraid that I will love it so much, that I will be content and stay there.
We think that just because something is a good, that we should be content with it. We tend to be content were we are in our walk with God, and discontent in our possessions and pay. Where in reality it should be the opposite. We should not be content with our walk with God, we should always be striving to know him, love him and desire him more, and we should be content with what we have. It is so easy to be distracted by the world and want more. I’m afraid that I will get distracted by the things, of this world and not carry out what God has called me to do.
Along this same line, I am afraid that I will let other people distract me from this. People say get a little more experience in your field, save some money, get a new car, build your retirement fund, gain some capital, spend more time doing this or that. This is not wrong in and of it self, but if this is not what God is calling us to do then it is wrong. I am afraid that I will let everyone else determine what God is calling me to do. I am afraid that rather than listening to God I will listen to those around me. Not that God can’t use others but ultimately we must listen to God.
Just listening to God is hard. Not saying that you should completely tune out others, that would be wrong, but I think sometimes we tend to listen to those whose voices we can hear rather than genuinely seeking God. We let others drowned out God’s voice. It seems we think that what other people think is more important than what our creator commands.
Others have a hard time understanding that we may be called to give up the “comforts” and go live “uncomfortably” were God has called us to live. To give up what we have deemed security and safety. When in reality living outside of God’s will is the most uncomfortable you can be, and you never truly safe or secure anyway. I heard a gentleman speak this past weekend and he said that “Until you are willing to be shipwrecked, your faith can never be what it should be.” You won’t really truly see God’s power unless you are willing to live in total abandonment to him to be shipwrecked if you will. I’m sick of people holding back when God tells them to do something. Yes, there are sometimes things you must do first. Especially, if you have committed to doing them, (for example me paying off my debt), but there comes a point when you’re just making excuses (like Moses did in Exodus). Why is so hard for me to step out in faith?? Why do I have to examine ever angle and sit there and go “Well, God I’m not so sure about this…. I mean after I start and finish step number one what is step number two??”
Genesis 12:1 “The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your Father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”” (NIV)
Genesis 12:4 “So Abram left, as the Lord had told him…” (NIV)
Just like that, God tells him and he goes. He didn’t know where he was going, and you don’t see him making any excuses. We want to know the whole story before it starts, but in the end that would ruin it wouldn’t it?? If you know the ending do you even pick up the book and read it anyway?? In most cases I think the answer is no.
So yes, I’m afraid that I will love my life, right now, as it is, too much and I won’t want to see what is next, and I’m afraid that I will seek to purse my desires and / or other people’s desires for my life over God’s plan for my life.
I attended the chapel service at the juvenile home this week as I always do. As hard for it is for some people to imagine, every week I struggle with going. The flesh side of my self doesn’t want to, really doesn’t want to, but I go anyway. And I’m always blessed by the message and God always gives me his love for the kids there. Actually getting there is always hard; there is a real inward struggle. I don’t want to go… be away from what I want to do, to be outside my comfort zone (even though I’m not really uncomfortable there.) But I go anyway and I’m always glad I go once I get there and am inside but up until the point were I ring the bell and they let me in I always want to turn around and just go any where else.
This week the message was good… (It usually is). The gentleman who spoke was speaking in regards to a question one of the kids had asked several months ago. The question was “Do people who have never heard about God go to hell when they die??” This has always been a tough question for me. I was never really sure what to think. I know that you can’t go to heaven without confessing belief in God and really living like you believe in him and all he has done for you, but the other side of me says this is not fair.
The gentleman who spoke referenced the following passage:
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raise him from the dead, you will be saved.” (NIV)
If you don’t confess you can’t be save. If people don’t know who God is and what he has done they can’t confess. I read a little further and found:
Romans 10:15 “How, then can they call on the one they have not believed? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” (NIV)
As the gentleman pointed out in the chapel service if people can go to heaven without confessing, believing and living like they believe in God why would we even bother sending out missionaries and in fact why doesn’t God just come back now??
I’m sitting there in the chapel service totally thrilled about this new opportunity and the fulfillment of a dream that God placed in me and I’m thinking about a million tribes all over the earth (particularly those in Mexico) that have never heard about what God has done. Realizing that if they haven’t heard then they can’t confess and if they haven’t confessed they will not be saved. I was like “Wow.”
I’ve read both of the following passages of scripture about a million times and I saw them this time, in a new light. I could think of particular people, that I know, that haven’t gotten an opportunity to really hear about God enough to understand his greatness. And they haven’t heard because people haven’t told them yet.
Because I am too stubborn to just do what God tells me, without making excuses, people are going to hell, because I are sitting here in my comfortable room making excuses and second guessing God. Some people may just spend life in eternal separation from Gods grace, because I can’t step out in faith and obey him, simply because I don’t feel I can trust him with the outcome of this step of faith. I do not have the power to make them decide one way or the other what they believe (God is the only one who can change hearts) but if God calls me to go tell them and I don’t… I will be held accountable for my disobedience.
I know that God calls us to do many things, in many places and that God is fulfilling the dream I had that I believe is something he gave me. I also realized tonight that telling people about God (that have never heard about him before) is very important. Probably one of the most important things you can do besides obeying God. God can use us to fulfill Romans 10:15.
I have a passion for people my age and younger who are hurting and want to see God and understand God in this life right now as it pertains to them and I also have a passion for those who have never even heard about God.
And I’m faced with a choice… which one is more important? I think the answer to that question depends solely on God’s will for your life. For me I believe it is telling people that have never heard about God or whose contact with true believers is very limited or non existent, someone who can’t walk a mile or two and find a church.
I have a heart for both, and figuring out which one is the right one for me has been a real process. A process that has created a lot of pain and discomfort in my life, but it has also created something totally amazing, something that only God could design. It has been a process of letting go of dreams I had, and God replacing them with deep burning desires for things that I myself could never want, but because of God grace in my life I desire them more than any of the dreams I ever had.
