Free to Risk

I was tired this morning.
As I am every morning.
Wouldn't it be absolutely lovely - and miraculous - if we could wake up totally refreshed and energized, eager to start each day?!  Jump out of bed, ready to tackle whatever may be on the agenda.
Until that day comes, we are faced with a CHOICE each morning.

Today, I chose to get up and groggily head downstairs.  I grabbed my book and journal then made my way to the porch where I have been spending my mornings with Jesus recently.

As if God knew I needed a cattle prod to get me going, He used the words in Erwin McManus' book Seizing Your Divine Moment to stir up my heart and set me on fire once more.

Lately, I have been praying for some pretty big things to happen in my life.
God-sized, humanly impossible things.
Some would refer to these as MIRACLES.
My husband and I like to describe them as "big ask" prayers.
Whatever you want to call it, I have been praying for God to work in my life in an Ephesians 3:20 sort of way.

So, when I read, "We all want miracles, but we try to avoid needing them," McManus has my full attention.  As I am asking God to make a way, to give me a breakthrough, to do something incredible and divine, I HAVE to first be willing to be in a position to NEED God.  As McManus reminded me: being Lazarus would have been pretty amazing.  Walking out of the grave would have been an AWESOME experience.  YET, for that to have happened, Lazarus did have to DIE first.  Yeah, that part wasn't as glamorous or fun.  At least I'm guessing...

We want the Lazarus moments, but not the death moments that have to proceed them.
We want the good times without any hardships or difficulties along the way.
We want the mountain top view without the climb.
We want the success and glory without the elbow grease and grit and grind and disappointments and frustrations that are ultimately part of the process.
We forget, "The road to greatness is paved with failure."

We ask God to make a way.
If we are honest with ourselves, we expect this (or would really appreciate it at least):

BUT, more often than not, God shows us this:

Or even this:

And we question or doubt if we really heard God.
Maybe we need to pause and wait for clearer direction, for a flashing neon sign, for a wide open, newly paved 4 lane highway.
We might spend the rest of our lives waiting.
In face, I'm pretty sure we would.
Sadly, though, many of us are at a crossroads and AREN'T moving forward.  We're staying put.  We're stuck. And we're missing out. BIG time...

We have this miscontrued idea that following God guarantees our success, that the journey will be smooth and lead us directly to where we intended to go.

We also tend to want all our ducks in a row before we make any decisions. We want to know every little detail, be assured everything is going to line up and work out perfectly.

McManus calls us out.  "God moves through motivation far more than through information."  
Yet, we are afraid to do anything unless we have explicit proof from God's Word that we are absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of doubt supposed to do something.  We have this stirring in our heart.  God gives us a dream, a vision.  BUT, we're not 100% certain it's His will.  And so we wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.

I don't know exactly what passion or stirring or vision or dream God has put within you today, but I am coming to realize that the BEST thing to do when He does something like that is to GO FOR IT.
NOT to wait.
NOT to analyze.
NOT to figure out all the details.
NOT to second guess yourself.
But to GO FOR IT.

Is your heart right?
Are you motivated by a love for God?
Do you want to further His kingdom?
Then, GO FOR IT.

We get so tangled up in the web of lies and confusion and misinterpretation we have unknowingly spun for ourselves in the Christian community.  Again, McManus sheds light on our situation and invites us to live differently, "Information in the Bible leads to our FORMATION.  God never intended to give us a Book with every detail needed to live our lives.  He gave us a Book with everything necessary to SHAPE our lives."

He goes on to say, "The fuel for a life of faith is more INSPIRATION than information."  
We don't have to know all the details.
God rarely reveals them all to us anyway.
It's more a step by step, one foot in front of the other, type journey.
That's called TRUST.
And Proverbs 3:5-6 is pretty clear:

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart;

do NOT depend on your own understanding.

Seek His will in all you do,

and He will show you with path to take.

Just remember, sometimes - more often than not really - the path may look like this:

Is it safe?
Probably not.
As we learn from the Beavers in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, "Aslan (God) is not safe.  But He is good."  So good...

And so we TRUST Him.
McManus describes it this way, "Faith is trusting God enough to obey what He has said, and hope is having the confidence that God will do everything He has promised."

What has God promised?

To help you as you commit your life to Him 

(Psalm 37:3-6)

To give you the power to accomplish all the good things 

your faith prompts you to do 

(2 Thessalonians 1:11)

To do FAR more than you could ever begin to imagine 

(Ephesians 3:20)

Can I tell you exactly what this faith journey will look like?
Absolutely NOT.

I CAN, however, assure you with 100% confidence that it will be the ride of your life, the BEST thing you could ever do, and that you won't regret for a second the choice to follow hard after God and give Him your all.

Will there be hardship and difficulty?  YES.
Will there be pain and grief?  YEP.
Will there be failure?  INDEED.

Wait just a second!  Hold your horses!
I thought God promised to give us victory, to bless us, to cause us to prosper, to make His glory known in and through us.
He does.
BUT, let's not forget that even the army who wins the war loses some soldiers in the battles along the way.  Or that Lazarus had to DIE in order for Jesus to raise Him from the dead.

As McManus points out, "In between faith and hope, there is RISK."
We tend to view risk as BAD.
We want to avoid it.
With risk there is the possibility of failure.
And we don't want that.

Or do we?

McManus offers us this perspective and insight, "Risk that God respects is fueled by passion for His purpose and a willingness to subjugate our lives to His mission."

So, once again, we come back to that passion stirring up within you.
We take another look at your dream.
And we ask ourselves if it is in line with the heart of God.
Are we motivated by a desire to make God known?
Do we long to draw others into a relationship with Him?
Is our ultimate goal to bring God glory?

If so, then GO FOR IT.
Stop waiting around.
Stop letting Satan hold you back.
You've been set free.
So LIVE out your freedom.
And GO FOR IT!!!!

THIS message has become my heart's cry.
Helping people realize the importance and urgency of living out each day.
Calling people to THRIVE.
Encouraging them to recognzie the potential placed in them.
Equipping them to use the gifts and abilities God has specifically and purposefully placed in them.
To step up and live out the divine calling God has on their lives.

Like I said, McManus' words were like a cattle prod for me this morning.  Stirring up the embers inside my heart once more.  Setting me on fire.  And causing that passion to burn bright.

I leave you with these final words, hoping and praying they spark something deep inside of you today as well:

"To live outside God's will puts us in danger, but to live inside His will makes us dangerous."
I don't know about you, but the idea of being dangerous intrigues me.
Certainly sounds much more appealing that BEING in danger...

As does being FREE...
"When we begin to seize our divine moments, we do not begin to live risk-free, but instead become free to risk."

I would love nothing more than for you to join me on this rollercoaster ride, this life-changing journey through valleys low and mountains high, dry deserts and breathtaking waterfalls, and everything else in between.  I don't know where all we will go or how we will get there.  I DO know the end destination - JESUS Himself.

And I for one can't wait to run - or crawl with my last ounce of energy and sighing my last breath - into His arms to have Jesus pick me up, embrace me tight, and whisper in my ear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant.  I am pleased with you.  Come..."

For that, I will risk it all!