Okay here is a bit of window into what God has been doing with me this past week....one word, VISION!!! You see, something had happened over the past years, well for several years actually. You get married, you have kids, you get a job, you have a house, you get comfortable, and begin to think okay this is what God has for my life. This past Monday morning as I was stocking shoes, well let me back up a few days. Saturday and Sunday I felt like my soul was in a battle. I felt like the hounds of Hell were on my heals, and I truly believe they were. I was comfortable in my job and had the mindset, well I am now 30 or so, and this is going to be my life till I die. Yet all weekend I was in a spiritual battle that I did not realize was about to bring me in the middle of a war. I didn't know what to do, and Sunday I even stayed home from church that evening to read and pray, and well, I really didn't get any answers just some vagueness. Now back to Monday morning, there I was at work, stocking shoes, and then something hit me, a thought, a sense, I don't really know, all I know is God began to speak to me. I looked around the area I was in, and began to think, "Is this where my life is going to stay?" Then the next thing was I found myself almost in tears, because I realized I was in the middle of a war. God was saying it was time for me to step up and out, and I terrified. You see I have been prone to be like a kid who is at the pool and there father is in the pool saying "Just jump, I will catch you." Yet all I would ever do is run up to the edge of the pool and stick my foot in and then run away. BUT, something inside me began to say not this time, this time all the fear and doubt that I was feeling I took it straight to the cross, and began to nail it there and I turned and as if I and God were talking, I said, "Okay God, what is it you want me to do?" "Teach, preach, and write were the three words that immediately came into my mind. Also another factor began to evolve in my faulty thinking, almost as if God was correcting something that had been in me for years. I began to realize, yeah I am 30, so what?!?!? I still have my whole life a head of me...this is not the end, but simply a stepping stone to where and what God has for my life and my families life. Needless to say the enemy did not want me to stay focused on this, so he began to attack like never before. Some things at work began to transpire that I will deal with in this post, but suffice it to say I began to realize it was the enemy trying to get me off focus, because he realized I was about to focus on something bigger than me, God and His vision for my life.
Suffice it to say that this song could possibly sum up my thoughts on this part of my change in heart and re-focus:
Okay so skip ahead to Sunday, yeah, Sunday, another one of those Sunday's when you don't realize it but God is about to rock your world. Suffice it to say that every word from the message sunk into my heart like God was painting a huge picture for my life all right there in front of me. Every word and every thought began to be another brush stroke onto the canvas of my life. At one point I found myself in tears during the message then again at the end of the service while everyone was walking out of the sanctuary, I could do nothing but drop back down into my seat and cry...I knew what I had to do, and for once in my life I could not settle I had to fight, I had to make war and I had to run towards the vision God had placed in my life. No more excuses, no more worrying, no more focus on the world, instead focus on God and focus on what He wanted...then if that was not enough our Bible Fellowship class talked about making war on sin...again not just sins that most people think are bad, but in my life a sin of not obeying and a sin of shuffling my feet and not fully wanting to follow God's calling. I knew at that point, I had to make war!
Well, suffice it to say, this is not going to be a simple adventure, it is going to require some big steps and some steps where I don't know what I am stepping on until God reveals the stone. It will require going against what some people think is "normal", to be the odd man out, so what?!?!? I am tired of following the world's vision of a successful life. I don't want to be one of the members of the status quo, no I don't want to settle for second best, but I want to fight for what God has for my life. Yeah it will be a war, yeah I will wear thin, but God's Spirit is far greater than any of these things, and will give me the strength to press on and fight sin and to follow His calling!
