Believing in Your Assignment

Recently I needed my transcripts from college to pursue an opportunity. I had not seen the results of the time spent in higher education in many, many years, and when they arrived in the mail, I was curious to see what had transpired in my life so long ago. I was utterly amused then stunned by the significance of what I read. The only grade on my transcript that was lower than a B was in a single course ~ Writing of Fiction, Poetry and Drama. Imagine that. Statistics state that 85% of college graduates are not working in the fields for which they studied in college. I knew from the time I was a child I wanted to write yet someone else's evaluation of my ability was "C". Today I have a published book of my poetry, photography and life experiences. I am writing to all of you scattered across the country weekly. Something must be working right.

Just last week in my devotions I read this statement, "Others may not understand your vision or God-given dream, but you must remain faithful to whatever assignment God reveals to you so that you can see what mighty things God will do in and through you." (Encounters with God Daily Bible by Dr. Thomas Blackaby) Imagine if I had believed that professor's evaluation of my ability to write poetry (our focus in that class). Imagine if I had stopped writing and said, I give up. The ramifications are much greater than I can perceive even at this moment in time. I know that I am just beginning to walk in the dream that God has for me. Fortunately, I do have a hint of that dream, a sense of what He wants for me, and I want to use the gifts that He has placed inside of me.

"Instead, God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. " 1 Corinthians 1:27 When you look at yourself and compare yourself to those around you (which we all do at some point and time), do you feel inadequate? Has someone at some point in your life given you a "C" for what you believe in your heart of hearts is a calling for you? If you haven't experienced that setback than you are rather unusual. God has a wonderful knack for choosing the most unlikely candidates for the tasks He needs completed. He forewarned us in scripture that He was going to do just that. So why are we surprised when He chooses us and uses us when we are so "ill-equipped" for the job?

We continue to see ourselves through other people's eyes instead of the eyes of our Creator, who is our Lover and our Father and our Friend. Is it really so surprising that the people around us who are seeing us through the filters of their lives would not mirror back to us an image that is beautiful and uplifting? If they did that, it could jeopardize their own already weakened state of self-esteem. For if their self-image is not based on God but on themselves, then they cannot reflect His love, His grace and His light. When we look at ourselves in the mirror of their eyes, we are going to automatically see a distorted image much like walking into the Hall of Mirrors at the carnival.

If we are to believe in ourselves, believe in the assignment, the vision that God has given us for our lives, then we must believe the "unbelievable": we are the creation of a loving God who will birth incredible gifts in us to be used by Him ~ if we will allow Him total access to our lives. I encourage you to believe what God tells you about you. Believe what is written in the Word about you. Read it out loud until it drowns out the naysayers in your life. God has a dream and an assignment for everyone that is willing to die unto themselves for Him and thus live forever. Not a single one of us is unqualified. The truth of the matter is we are not equipped until we are called, but we won't be truly called if we haven't agreed to pick up our cross and follow Him. Are you ready to be equipped?

Chosen for God's Program

Have you ever wondered what the difference was between Ruth and Orpah? Orpah heeded Naomi's advice to turn back on that dusty road to Bethlehem and start over with her family and friends in Moab while Ruth refused and went on to a strange city and a new home with Naomi. What was different about these two women, both Moabites, both living with Naomi and her sons for ten years, both widows? Why would one choose to go back and one choose the unknown?

I was honored to hear a powerful message from an anointed pastor a month ago in which he discussed being chosen for God's program. He described children born into the same family, experiencing the same environment, yet not all are chosen by God to be used by Him for His work. Look at David and his brothers. Look at Joseph and his brothers. The examples are throughout the bible, but they are also throughout our lives. This pastor described a process that we go through in which we have a choice. How passionate is our love for God? How full is our surrender to Him? Truly God loves us all and when we repent, He will forgive us, but if we continue to go back to the same sin, the same areas of weakness expecting His forgiveness, how fully have we surrendered? The example he gave was a simple one. Smoking. He said, if the house in which we live was full of smoke, we would get out, wouldn't we? Yet we expect Holy Spirit to live in us (His temple) filled with smoke (if we are smokers) and say, I know He is forgiving me because I am addicted and I want to give it up, but I just can't. Question: are we choosing the desire of the cigarettes over our desire for Him?

Consider our preoccupation with activities of this world, like computer time (how about the latest craze of Facebook). He is patiently waiting for time with Him, but we choose to just check in on our Facebook page and then ten minutes becomes an hour that turns into two. Does He stop loving us? Of course not. When you see that the night has vanished and you intended to study the Word or make phone calls reaching out to someone but now you are too tired and you say, oh, I am so sorry, Lord. Tomorrow night. Does He forgive you? He is a forgiving God when you say you are sorry. But will He choose you for His program? Have you fully surrendered your life to Him?

Ruth did. Something triggered in Ruth's spirit. She had already lost everything that was important in her life as she knew it - her husband and her source of future joy - the potential for having children with him. She was on the road to an unknown city with a culture that she knew was foreign to what she had known all of her life until marrying into Naomi's world. Yet instilled in her was the unquestionable knowledge that she had to pursue God and He was all that was important. Listen to her plea to Naomi, "Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." Ruth 1:16-17. Ruth knew that Naomi was the link to God and she was not going to let anything keep her from Him.

Do we have that same sense of urgency and passion about pursuing God? Are we willing to abandon all that is familiar to us, all that makes life agreeable for us to find out who He is and what He wants for our lives? Paul challenges us in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" Far too often, we have become jaded in our comfortable existence and our understanding compassionate God patiently waits for us to make a choice. If we don't choose to pursue Him with total abandonment and surrender, He won't ever force us. But can He choose us for His elite corps for kingdom work, if we are not willing to make the sacrifices it takes to get ready? Are you ready to be qualified as a risk taker for God like Ruth or are you more like Orpah who will take the advice of those that offer you comfort and turn back to the familiar? What must you abandon to become a member of the elite corps? He is waiting for our answer.......

Surrendering My Will to His

Every time it seems that order is finally coming into my life and I think I understand what the Lord's will is for my life, there is a shift and nothing is in order again. Have you ever had that experience? I believe I have surrendered my life to Him; I believe that I have given total control to Him. I am at peace. I have clarity about what His expectations are for me and the use of my gifts and off I go down the yellow brick road to accomplish those tasks for Him. Then I suddenly realize, the yellow bricks are suddenly disappearing out from under my feet. First just a couple here and there, and that is not too alarming because I can still see the path ahead of me. Slowly however, I come to realize that there are fewer and fewer yellow bricks under my feet. I am forced to come to a complete stop when the bricks are completely gone. I am standing in the midst of a field - once again - without a clue as to where the yellow brick road went or where it might show up again. Sound familiar?

How does this happen to individuals who are truly trying to "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" Luke 10:27? Perhaps a clue is contained in the first part of that question, we are truly trying. Sometimes maybe we are trying so hard, our "trying" gets in the way of our succeeding in becoming what the Lord is seeking of us. Have you ever tried for hours to balance your checkbook and in frustration set it aside only to come back the next day and in five minutes succeed? I see our walks in much the same light. Just like our checkbooks, we have a clear idea of how balanced they should be. We know that we should be paying attention to the "entries" daily. We know we need to "reconcile" the mistakes as soon as they occur or else we have a huge mess to clean up weeks (or months) later. Sometimes we have ignored the register for so long that the imbalance ends up with bounced checks and huge fees paid to the bank. Ouch! How similar is that to our walk with the Lord?

There are so many similarities that now that I have started down this path, it is startling me as I watch them unfold. So let's get back to the main point - we are trying to follow the path the Lord has for us through loving Him with our total selves. Yet somewhere along the way, we have become so focused on keeping the checkbook of our faith walk balanced that we have lost the big picture. We have lost the understanding that it is not about a system of checks and balances with the Lord. It is about living a life of total abandonment to Him; a life of total surrender to Him. Instead we have micromanaged our faith just as we manage our checkbooks. We question ourselves: am I doing enough for Him? Am I showing Him enough that I love Him through my activities? If we are truthful, are we asking Him about all aspects of our lives, or just those that are church related?

Allow me to challenge you with this concept: the Lord is more interested in your being with Him than your doing for Him. He is saying to you, "Come be with Me." Not "Go, do for Me." When you come and be with Him, really understand and step into the intimate relationship that He has for you, then He will make more than enough time for you to do the tasks that He has set aside for you to accomplish for His kingdom. James 2:17 "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." Make no mistake, you must accomplish much for His kingdom, but only after you have discovered the incredible power that resides within His infinite love for you. Then you will have the peace, the energy and the unquenchable desire to do more than you ever have and He will be walking beside you continually.

Ultimately it all boils down to total surrender. Giving up control over your life and giving to Him. Telling the Lord that whatever He wants to do with your life is OK with you. Really, God, I mean it. It is OK. Can you do that? Can you release those individuals in your life that you love but who are not making good decisions - at least not by your standards? Can you accept the fact that somebody else has the job you thought you should have had? How about the relationship someone else is enjoying that you wanted and still don't have? Can you accept your financial hardships when someone else is being blessed? Can you let all of that go and say, it's OK, God. I trust You with my life. After all You gave it to me in the first place. Can you believe that He really wants the best for you in the midst of your circumstances? That is what surrendering your will to His really means. You have to learn to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6 My prayer for you and for myself is that we learn to put down the check book of our faith and lift our hands in surrender to Him who loves us more than we can possibly imagine.

The Selfishness of Unforgiveness

All of us, without exception, have had to struggle with forgiving someone for hurting us. It is not the simple acceptance of an apology offered; it is a heart matter. Sometimes the hurt is deep and the wound was recurring, but still we must deal with true forgiveness if we want to move on. So we look at ourselves and we rationalize this is "my issue"; I'll handle it as soon as I can manage it. Sometimes that is sooner, and sometimes it is much later. However for many people they continue to believe, it is "my issue" and it doesn't involve anyone else. The truth of the matter is that unforgiveness impacts everyone that comes in contact with the individual who harbors it. Unforgiveness is a root that buries itself deep into the heart and spirit of an individual and it begins to poison life all around it.

Let us first consider what the Word tells us. In Ephesians 4:30-32 we read, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." We are instructed to put away all behaviors that would reflect the opposite of walking in Christ's love and forgiveness. After all that is what He demonstrated and gave to us. Yet suppose that due to the hurt we experienced, we decide to cling to that unforgiveness because we are not quite ready to let go. What are the consequences?

Examine first the inner circle of those that we love, our family. They live with our unforgiveness for the individual(s) whenever they are around us. They hear it in our language and see it in our body language. If they choose to forgive the person(s) involved, we put them in a conflicting position of trying to love us and yet still walk in love with the other person(s). Tension is created in the atmosphere which of course is the adversary's breeding ground for discord and dissension. Jesus himself told us (Luke 11:17) "a house divided against itself shall fall." There is no genuine peace whenever the unforgiveness is present.

Examine the outer circle of friends who feel obligated to choose because of known or stated feelings on the subject. Often there is an almost unspoken ultimatum: choose your side! Look what was done to me. If I cannot forgive them, how can you? The poison begins to spread. Remember that the adversary is the master liar of all time. He certainly isn't changing his methods at this late date. Unforgiveness is one of his most successful tools in keeping individuals from reaping the benefits of being children of redemption.

Thus the deep root of unforgiveness winds it way through the soil and on the surface it begins to suffocate the once beautiful vegetation of relationships. Like sucker vines on once healthy trees, it penetrates the bark and vaporizes life-giving juices from love-filled relationships, separating the individual from the source of true life. In Colossians 3:12-13, we are further instructed, "Therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do."

Therein is the most important aspect of the selfishness of unforgiveness. We think it is all about "my issue" when in reality it is totally about what Christ did for us. How incredibly egotistical of us. How can we withhold our forgiveness when Christ did not withhold His from us? How can we think that whatever was done to us, whatever happened to us, holds a candle to what Jesus Christ bore on the cross for our own personal forgiveness? Did He for even one second say, “Well, Janice, let me think about this for a little while and see if I want to forgive you for what you are going to do that is nailing me to this cross?” I cringe even considering that thought. No, in Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus was very clear about forgiveness. "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you."

Do not consider the harshness of that statement at this moment, although all of us must at some point reconcile ourselves with the consequences of what unforgiveness will cost us on the Day of Judgment. Instead I want you to consider how you tie the hands of the Lord in working in your life. You are His Beloved. He battles for your heart every single day that you are still on this earth breathing. Yet as long as you hold unforgiveness in your heart, you block His ability to work in your life. You are choosing to grieve the Holy Spirit and that makes the daily battle so much more difficult.

Choose forgiveness. Choose the peace that surpasses human understanding. Release your family and your friends, but most importantly release the power of forgiveness in your own life as you watch the incredible healing of Holy Spirit work as you become “the elect of God” in everything that you do, with everyone in your life.