This morning I was sitting on the floor enjoying playing with my gorgeous little bubba and then I watched him as he rolled and rolled around the floor on the carpet until he glimpsed my cat's paw temptingly dangling over the edge of the lounge chair. He suddenly stopped rolling and stayed on his tummy, straining his head up as high as he could to try and look up and see the cat. I could just imagine what he might have been thinking as he kept on looking and stretching up on his hands as much as possible... 'if only I could get up there'... 'if only I could reach up that high'
Right at this point in my life, I know that is what I have been thinking and I'm sure you know what I am talking about. We all know what we would like for our lives... we all have many dreams and desires that seem 'just' out of reach and we think 'if only I could get there'... 'if only I could have that'...
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having those dreams but just like my bubba who obviously has a few stages of development to go through before he can climb up onto that lounge chair to harrass the cat, perhaps God needs to develop and grow us before we can achieve some of our goals and desires.
Perhaps because if we had a million dollars right now we would squander it becuase we haven't yet learnt how to be completely diligent with the thousands that we already have... or if God allowed us to have that position of authority too early we might become a bit proud because we haven't quite grasped that humble attitude He is looking for.
Whatever our dream is and whatever God is doing in our lives takes time... time to build character, time to bring change, time to make us stronger.
I know without a shadow of doubt that one day my boy will be chasing the cat around the entire house but for now he has to just enjoy watching as he goes through a few more growth spurts and as the saying goes... "We need to learn to walk before we can run!"
"There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears"
Philippians 1:6
"I can't get no... satisfaction... and I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried... I can't get NO (do, do, do).... No, no, no!"
Now that I got you singing... haha!
As most of you probably know me quite well, you will know that I am someone who likes to set goals for my personal life and I have lots of dreams and visions. Every year my husband and I sit down and write out our goals for that coming year and the next five, ten, and fifty years... and then we revisit them every once in a while to make sure we are on track, etc.
Well, unfortunately, I have a dream which just doesn't seem to want to come to pass right now and it has been quite a few years of dreaming and praying and waiting... lots of waiting (sigh). I also have a few other desires which in themselves seems quite big and impossible from where I am sitting right now but I know that God is a God of the impossible!
However, just the last few days God has been speaking to me about being satisfied with where I am at right now and being satisfied in Him. Sometimes when I have a dream or a goal I become quite focussed on achieving it that I am looking so far ahead of myself and not enjoying what I am currently doing or where I am at in life right now.
Proverbs 19:23 'The fear of the Lord leads to life and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.'
Now, I'm not about to say that we shouldn't have goals because without any vision or purpose we will perish but perhaps my focus needs to change just slightly so that I am putting God first in every part of my life and I am not becoming distracted from Him with my own dreams and desires. Not that my dreams and desires are not of God... because I know that they are... they are good Godly desires but He needs to be my first focus and not my dream.
In Psalm 95:6-11 it talks about the Israelites in the wilderness after they had been set free from Egypt and they were being distracted by other things around them instead of focussing on what God was giving them right then and there. God was supplying every need for them... they should have been satisfied but they kept thinking about their past and their own desires. Because of this God said that they would not enter His rest... they would not be satisfied.
Psalm 106:13-15 'They soon forgot His works; They did not wait for His counsel, But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness And tested God in the desert. And He gave them their request, But sent leanness into their soul.'
Again it is talking about the Israelites in the wilderness and how even after God had done so much for them up until that point... like feeding them manner from Heaven, giving them water out of a rock, killing the Egyptians at the Red Sea... But still they kept forgetting about those amazing things that God had done and was doing for them and were distracted by what they wanted NOW! They 'lusted exceedingly' and God ended up giving them their request. BUT they were still dissatisfied... they had leanness in their souls!
Unless we put God first in everything that we do... in everything that we desire... in everything that we dream about... even though those dreams and goals my come to pass... we may not feel completely satisfied... we will not be completely fulfilled. Our satisfaction needs to be in God and not in fulfilling our own dreams and desires, even if those dreams and desires are good.
God wants us to live an abundant and fulfilled life and the only way we can do that is by putting Him first... letting Him become our complete satisfaction.
If we never achieved anything else in life... never got given anything else that we wanted... never had any more dreams come to pass... would we feel completely satisfied?
Something very challenging for me to think about.... what about you?
I was reading my Bible just before going to bed the other night.... blind Bartimaeus was sitting at the gate and heard that Jesus was coming by. He was calling out to Jesus, ‘Son of David... have mercy on me’. Jesus heard Bartimaeus and stopped in his tracks. He then asked Bartimaeus ‘What do you want?’...
I felt challenged as I read that story. How many times do my prayers stop Jesus to take notice of what I am saying? And ‘What do I want?’
I also began to question myself... do I actually ask Jesus for exactly what I want? I have lots of dreams and desires in my heart but do I actually voice them enough in my prayers so that Jesus takes notice? Obviously Jesus already knew what Bartimaeus wanted because He could see that he was blind... so why did He ask him ‘What do you want?’
Jesus wants us to ask Him for what we want even though He may already know the desires of our heart. There is that other Scripture that says ‘You have not because you ask not’.
The next day we had a guest speaker in our staff meeting and he spoke about several things but he also spent a little bit of time on this same story. I was flabbergasted!! Obviously God is trying to tell me something! Perhaps I need to get on my knees more often and ask Jesus for what I want.
James 4:2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.
Every now and again I am absolutely stunned at how quickly life can pass by, often without us barely even noticing and last night was one of those times... My husband Craig and I celebrated with one of our friends who turned 40 years old today. I honestly cannot believe I have friends who are that age and that I too have almost reached that point in life... the dreaded top of the hill! However, aren’t they now saying that 40 is the new 30?? What a relief!!
I remember when my mother had her 40th birthday and we had a huge surprise party for her... I was sixteen at the time and everyone else who was my mum’s age and my mother of course... seemed SO old. It kind of shocks me to think that I was there to celebrate with my mum when I myself who has only about 15 months to go haven’t even started a family yet!
But along with celebrating with our friend the big 40... yesterday he also buried his friend of many years who was a similar age... that is most certainly a wake-up call to me of how short life can be.
All of this rolled into one definitely makes you reflect again on your own life... my achievements, successes, failures, opportunities taken or missed... but it also encourages me to ensure that in the coming years I take every opportunity that I possibly can and strive that little bit harder to achieve all of those goals and dreams that I have in my heart.
Life is beautiful and a God-given gift but often life can be short or it can pass by so quickly that it comes and goes without a blink because we can be so busy doing EVERYTHING but I want to be one who will ‘seize the day’ and make the most of my life, live my life to the full with purpose and do God’s will for my life... because we have only one life to live on this earth... and I want to make it count!
Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
Last night over dinner with my husband our conversation eventually lead to us having a deep and meaningful about our future, our hopes and dreams, our desires and what we want to do in the coming years...which is one thing that we love to do. Craig and I both have some very big dreams (sometimes I wonder if they are even too big) but I don’t ever want to be one of those people who has lots of dreams and talks about them all the time but never actually does anything about it. So of course this afternoon, while I am at home alone without my lovely husband (he is working... as he does every weekend...we have a desire to change this!) I have again been thinking about our dreams and wondering how we can achieve them and what I can do to help achieve them.
The other night at our home group we were listening to a CD by a guy named Dr Dave Martin and he was discussing the differences between the way that rich people think and the way that poor people think. One of the points he brought up was that rich people believe ‘I can create my life’ but poor people think that ‘life just happens’. God has given us a mind to think and to create and to have dreams and visions... God is the creator of the whole universe, He created the world we live in, He did it all in only seven days AND we are created in the image of Him... We can create the life we desire through Jesus.
But I find myself in a quandary, as I so often do when it comes to my dreams, because I always wonder to myself... but what is God’s will?? I always ask myself the same question ‘is my dream also God’s will for my life?’ What is God’s will for my life? The problem is that I never get a straight answer... even from God. The only thing I have got to go on is God’s Word... The Bible. So I asked myself the question ‘Do my dreams line up with the Word of God?’ Well....Yes....they do!
So does that mean that all of my dreams will come true? I guess they will... if I work hard at it... if I have the right mindsets... if I trust in God for the impossible and have faith.
I remember quite a few years ago now, I believed that God was calling me to New Zealand to be a farmer’s wife. Now, for those of you who know me well, you will probably be on the floor rolling around in laughter right now!! As if I could be a farmers wife... right!!?? What was I thinking!!!??? Anyway, I was going... I had my ticket booked and paid for, my bags were almost packed until.... God stopped me. I mean He stopped me!! God gave me a word from someone who knew absolutely nothing about my situation and told me very directly to ‘wait for the green light’.... I was trying to go on a red light and God stopped me. So I listened... I didn’t go and God has blessed me with the most wonderful husband in the world!
As we start to take steps towards our future and head in the direction that we believe we should be going, the direction that our dreams are leading us, if God doesn’t stop us in our tracks... we must be on the right path. God may not always answer our questions for direction in our lives, He wants us to step out and trust Him but if we do start to go off in the wrong direction, it is wonderful and comforting to know that He will gently lead us back onto the right track.
Just after I climed into my comfy bed last night and got all snuggled in ready to go to sleep I was a little bit disappointed about the fact that I hadn't managed to write in my blog and it was only the second day. To tell you the truth I hadn't been able to think of anything all night that I had wanted to write about which was a little bit scary.
Then I started to think about my upcoming ski trip to NZ in THREE DAYS....WHOO HOO!! I was remembering this one blue run that I have actually skied down a few times before but I always, ALWAYS see it coming and stop at the top to try and build up my courage to go over the edge. Anyway...in my mind I began to imagine myself skiing down towards the top of the run and then just keep on going straight over that edge without even thinking once about it and continuing down watching myself ski perfectly (without crashing!) and then when I reached the bottom I had a little party with myself...hehe. And then the revelation came...
Sometimes when we look at ourselves we see all the things that we aren't good at or we see ourselves as someone lesser than who we really are and what we can accomplish or sometimes we can look at ourselves and see what we could achieve but then immediately after those awesome thoughts, those negative ones, that we all know so well, just come and make themselves at home. But... (don't you just love those buts) God sees us as the completed and finished project... He sees the big picture, the one whom He created us to be. He sees everyone of us at the end of our journey and He is right beside us the whole entire time encouraging us as we take each step.
Now I know that surely I am not the only one who has those 'silly' daydreams and if I am then I have just completely embarrassed myself... but they aren't silly by the way! If you can imagine yourself doing something that you have always wanted to do the only other thing that you need to do to achieve that dream is to believe in yourself and to trust God. It may not happen overnight but if we begin by taking little steps towards those dreams, they will happen.
It doesn't matter what our dream is... whether its to ski that run next week, to be a better mum to our kids, to own a million dollar company or just to cook dinner without burning it... God sees that dream completed in us, we just need to look at ourselves through Gods eyes...oh and maybe do a little bit of hard work if you are after that million dollar company!
OK...so now that you know about my little dream to ski that blue run perfectly without pausing at the top...stay tuned for the party in a few days time :)
Jeremiah 29:11 'For I know the plans I have for you' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future...'
Ok so you know how it is... when you take that first initial step in doing something that you have never done before... whether its the first time you learn to ski, or the first time you drive a car, go out on a first date or skydive... whatever it is, it kinda takes your breath away when you even start to think about it! Anyway this is my first blog, so you get the picture... I'm quivering in my boots!
For as long as I can remember my friends, teachers, family and God have been telling me that I have 'treasure' within me or that I have something to give or there's heaps of stuff inside me, and to be honest with you most of the time my response has been 'whaaaaa???' I just couldn't see that I would have anything that anyone else would even be remotely interested in hearing or listening to.
But God has been showing me that under all of my insecurity there really is something in there and that if I don't get over my fear, have faith, let it out and share it, then I will never be completely fulfilled and be left thinking...if only...
So just recently I decided to let go, and let God... It's not like I have opened the lid on the treasure chest and it has all suddenly revealed itself but I know that as I take this first step God is going to meet me.
I have always had a passion and a desire to make a difference and to be an inspiration so this is my very small beginning...
"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin." Zechariah 4:10
