Day 35 – All I Need Is You #30dreamdays

Sitting down dreaming of being so surrounded by His presence that I have no hunger for anything else.  I’ve been a “Christian” for more than 10 years but I have not been hungry for His presence.  I’ve settled for less than God’s best because I didn’t do my part and seek Him.

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

I have not humbled myself.  I have prayed but did I truly seek Him?  I don’t think so.  I’m repenting but I realize that it’s to be expected since I am only really coming to understand what that means.  I could have read my Bible more.  I could have attended more Sunday School classes.  I could have done a lot of things.  Maybe I would have gotten it before now.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have a strong faith.  I believe in God.  I believe that Jesus was God’s son and died on a cross for our sins.  I believe that He was resurrected and now lives inside me.   I BELIEVE I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME.

But I have “believed” that in a way that has barely scratched the surface of what that means for ME…NOW.

I have lived off Fill Me Up by Jesus Culture for over a year now.  As I’ve already stated in a prior blog, I have been asking God to move my heart through new songs.  Quite honestly, listening to worship songs is another one of the things I could have done more of.

God has made it clear to me that I am to live my faith out loud.  I trust Him.  I believe that people reading this in October 2013 and for years to come will need to see how people wrestle with God.  How we chase Him and then get sidetracked by a squirrel right before we catch Him and have no good stories to share other than it was a brown squirrel.

I know people of faith and people who want to believe in something…just not God or Jesus…need to hear that I didn’t want this either.  I was minding my own business living my own life when I fell in love with a licensed minister.  Really?  With 3 young kids too?  Does this sound like I went out looking for this?

Looking back I can see how God pursued me.  I started realizing that a few years ago.  I was so in awe of being pursued by Him.  I was amazed at how perfect this ready made family was for ME that I made an Idol of my life and all that He had blessed me with.

He is showing me all this.  I naturally fall into trying to figure out what to do with all this and then I realize that is me back at it…idolizing the puzzle solving skills that I have been blessed with instead of pressing in and seeking more of Him.  More of His revelation.  Do I not trust Him to continue to reveal this to me and help me work out what to do NOW with this knowledge?  Why do I always resort back to “leaning on my own understanding” when All I Need is YOU, Lord.

Day 9 – Walk by Faith #30dreamdays

In January 2011 I completed an exercise that asked for My Big Dream and said have fun with it!  I went looking for this document during this 30 Dream Days Challenge to see what I wrote.

MY BIG DREAM (as of January 2011)

Write a #1 Bestseller (or many) while traveling the world “aimlessly” for at least a year.  Aimlessly really means led by God, so aimless to me but divinely destined and revealed to me as needed.  Now that’s what I call adventure!

It’s a bit fuzzy but that’s me on the right. I don’t do thrill type adventure well as you can see.

Writing a book is still one of my dreams, probably still the biggest as I know it would be a major undertaking.

For me, the part that has become easier over these last few years is the aimless and divinely destined part.   It is a walk by faith.

I don’t need to know every detail of where I am going, I just need to know the next step.  I am confident that when I take that step, I will know the next step after that because my perspective has changed, and I can see things differently from that new vantage point.

Too many people are scared to make mistakes or think the bottom will fall out of their whole life.   They get stuck.

I have had some rough patches but my faith in God and His love for me has grown so strong that I operate as if the whole world is stacked in my favor.

I also know that no matter what happens to me God can redeem it for my benefit and for the benefit of others.

Consider the quote I chose.  How many of you would have chosen Helen Keller’s circumstances willingly?  Her life was redeemed and she overcame her circumstances.  And now people like you and me get to be inspired by this story.

I have a theory that we can not truly appreciate goodness unless we have experienced tragedies, bad circumstances etc.  So I choose to be grateful even for the negative things in my life because those things allow me to appreciate the good things that eventually come even more.

With this kind of faith, it is easy to take the next step and trust that I will recognize the steps that lie ahead.  I continue to get better at it daily.   And without getting stuck in fear I am able to enjoy the adventure and make incredible forward progress…and so I will write a book (or more) one day.  Since I’m a recovering perfectionist, I no longer care if it is a #1 Bestseller…just that it impacts some people’s lives for the better.