Do you put God in a box? I know I'm guilty of it. Having been through multiple job searches over the past several years I have often found myself creating my own limits on what I believe God will do. I have found myself thinking and saying crazy things like, "I won't get that job...it's where I want to be" or "I'll apply for this job but I doubt I'll get it because I never get interviews where I want them."
Is that crazy or what? Here I am, a child of the God of the universe, the One who can do anything and created everything, and I doubt His ability to create something good for me? What's more surprising, that we all create this box for God to work within or that we doubt His love for us, allowing our own self-doubt to overpower a love we can barely comprehend?
I suspect that, truth be told, it's a little of both, but that ultimately the box we create comes from a lack of understanding His love for us. Let me ask you a question to force a bit of introspection. When you fail at something, or run through a period where things don't seem to be going very well, do you lose sight of God's love for you? Before you answer, think about it for a bit. The easy answer is to say that no, you never doubt God's love. The response then must be, "then why do you/we not believe He wants great things for us?" It would also be wise to ask yourself why you don't focus even more on His love when you feel that distance creeping in?
I know this thought process can be a bit off the path a bit, so let's see if I can clarify just a touch with this statement: If I know God loves me and I believe He loves me as a dad loves his child, then even in my limited human understanding I can recognize how powerful that love truly is. The sheer power of my own love for my children is so strong I can't hold it inside. I get very emotional at seemingly small things because I love them so deeply that I feel everything they go through. God's love is even so much more than that for us, I believe, so for me to suggest He doesn't care enough to aid my happiness is selfish and blind, at best.
What happens when I become so inward and lose sight of His obvious love is that I begin to create limits on what I believe God can do. For example, let's say I'm job searching and cannot seem to find the right fit. After several months I begin to doubt everything about my search and where I'll land because I've been stating to God all along that I'll go wherever He wants me to go. Deep down, do I believe it? I do, but even in that willingness to move I'm creating a box for Him to provide because I've resigned myself to a belief that my ideal choice can't possibly be His ideal choice for me.
Ummmm, why? Why would I believe God wouldn't want me to be incredibly happy? Do I not want my own children to be extremely happy? How different is this, then, from His perspective? Let me share a little secret. I've spent 22 of the last 30 months unemployed, constantly believing my life was going to be changed in dramatic ways by moves to unfamiliar locations. In all of this, my consistent affirmation to God was that I would go wherever He wanted and do whatever He wanted. I wanted to serve and that was a sincere desire but I firmly believed my desires had no place in that commitment to Him.
See, never in all those times of searching did I once ask God to place me in the one location I wanted to live more than any other. Not once. So it struck me, as He circumvented my own lack of understanding and gave me a job in exactly the one place I wanted to live more than any other, that I had not understood. I hadn't understood the depth of His love; I hadn't understood that while I was willing to go and do anything for Him, it was OK to state my own preference, especially as it wasn't selfish, though I'm aware He understands my selfish thoughts as well.
Look, there is nothing wrong with asking God the desires of your heart as long as you understand He's not about to grant something counterproductive to His work and what He's accomplishing through you. As a child of God, as one who has said YES to His Son, you have been given many gifts, one of which is the opportunity to serve the One who saved you from nothingness. So do Him a favor; the next time you are worried that your prayers will not be heard because you are concerned they are selfish, examine the reason you feel you are being selfish. Sometimes it's because you don't understand His love for you and sometimes it's because you've created a box you believe God will work within.
Stop living in the box and start living without limits. God loves you deeply enough that you'll never comprehend it on His earth, but that doesn't mean you have to forgo enjoying it while you're here. He wants to show us His love, but so often we don't allow Him to do it fully because we can't comprehend it. The phrase that comes to mind here is "Let go. Let God."
Let's let go and let God and see where that gets us. I have a suspicion it'll be much better than we ever hoped.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Your Weakness, His Strength?
My brother made a comment on the last post I'd been thinking a bit about lately so I want to place a note here to flesh out this thing that can be a problem. The problem is, how do we overcome the limits of our simple minds and recognize that even in our weakness, God can draw strength? Moreover, when do we quit placing limits on God's ability to use us?
Dan's quote in his comment was, "I keep wasting my time on my strengths and thinking they must be the path God wants to work most through me." This is exactly what I'd been thinking about and states the idea very well. We all use this excuse for not being more and doing more for God. It starts with saying we're not ready to become saved or make a commitment to Him because we're not good enough, or acting right, or in the right place spiritually. It continues when we determine that our weaknesses are too much for God to overcome, so we can't possibly serve Him in the way we should until those are corrected.
While both of these thought processes are simply part of being human, they show a lack of understanding of the true power of God and His ability to effect change using any part of us. What's crazy to me is that we'll read about all the mistakes the Israelites made (their deliverance from Egypt is the most common one to attack) and poke fun at how they continued to forsake God and forget what He'd done and was doing for them, and yet often not make the connection that we do the same.
Admittedly, reading these stories has always seemed a little off to me. I'd see how they seemingly continued to forget God's grace and would begin to worship idols, or how they'd complain to Moses and Aaron about different things and I'd wonder how they could be so, well, stupid. But I knew somewhere in there as I was pointing my finger at them that there must be three fingers pointing right back at me, though I couldn't figure out why that was true.
Well, here I am putting limits on God's ability to use me or place me into any form of ministry because I know my own weaknesses and feel they are too big of a hindrance. I seem to think I need to correct them before I can do something for Him. I struggle to accept His power to use me, His power to change me, and fight off the opportunity to serve Him in a great capacity because I can't handle these weaknesses. What kind of a dud am I? No need to answer because I know what the issue is. The issue is that I'm human and because of how I was made, my natural inclination will always be to rely on myself before I let God take full control.
God has given each of us abilities and gifts we can use for Him. We all have strengths in certain areas ranging from encouragement to leadership to caring for children to being prayer warriors...the list is unending. And the needs within His kingdom are unending, which is perfect since we are all so different! This way we can each serve Him using our unique set of skills. But to get there, we have to first recognize our weaknesses are a hindrance only if we refuse to let God turn them into strengths or remove them altogether. We don't have to be perfect to come to God and accept His Son as Savior, and in the same way we don't have to be perfect to serve Him in whatever ministry He has called us to.
You've seen the term "Let go. Let God."? It really is that simple in terms of execution, but the difficulty is overcoming our own mental block that wants to make things hard. God's path for us is so easy to find when we allow Him to mold us into who He wants us to be. He wants nothing but good for all His people. Stop getting in the way of His plan, bow to His love for you and let Him use you for His glory. Stop selling yourself short and stop creating excuses for not being all you can be. Remember, this is God's universe. He created it and has a plan for you to help Him improve it while you're here, but He'll never force you to do anything. Remove the veil of misunderstanding from before your eyes and just let...God...reign.
Dan's quote in his comment was, "I keep wasting my time on my strengths and thinking they must be the path God wants to work most through me." This is exactly what I'd been thinking about and states the idea very well. We all use this excuse for not being more and doing more for God. It starts with saying we're not ready to become saved or make a commitment to Him because we're not good enough, or acting right, or in the right place spiritually. It continues when we determine that our weaknesses are too much for God to overcome, so we can't possibly serve Him in the way we should until those are corrected.
While both of these thought processes are simply part of being human, they show a lack of understanding of the true power of God and His ability to effect change using any part of us. What's crazy to me is that we'll read about all the mistakes the Israelites made (their deliverance from Egypt is the most common one to attack) and poke fun at how they continued to forsake God and forget what He'd done and was doing for them, and yet often not make the connection that we do the same.
Admittedly, reading these stories has always seemed a little off to me. I'd see how they seemingly continued to forget God's grace and would begin to worship idols, or how they'd complain to Moses and Aaron about different things and I'd wonder how they could be so, well, stupid. But I knew somewhere in there as I was pointing my finger at them that there must be three fingers pointing right back at me, though I couldn't figure out why that was true.
Well, here I am putting limits on God's ability to use me or place me into any form of ministry because I know my own weaknesses and feel they are too big of a hindrance. I seem to think I need to correct them before I can do something for Him. I struggle to accept His power to use me, His power to change me, and fight off the opportunity to serve Him in a great capacity because I can't handle these weaknesses. What kind of a dud am I? No need to answer because I know what the issue is. The issue is that I'm human and because of how I was made, my natural inclination will always be to rely on myself before I let God take full control.
God has given each of us abilities and gifts we can use for Him. We all have strengths in certain areas ranging from encouragement to leadership to caring for children to being prayer warriors...the list is unending. And the needs within His kingdom are unending, which is perfect since we are all so different! This way we can each serve Him using our unique set of skills. But to get there, we have to first recognize our weaknesses are a hindrance only if we refuse to let God turn them into strengths or remove them altogether. We don't have to be perfect to come to God and accept His Son as Savior, and in the same way we don't have to be perfect to serve Him in whatever ministry He has called us to.
You've seen the term "Let go. Let God."? It really is that simple in terms of execution, but the difficulty is overcoming our own mental block that wants to make things hard. God's path for us is so easy to find when we allow Him to mold us into who He wants us to be. He wants nothing but good for all His people. Stop getting in the way of His plan, bow to His love for you and let Him use you for His glory. Stop selling yourself short and stop creating excuses for not being all you can be. Remember, this is God's universe. He created it and has a plan for you to help Him improve it while you're here, but He'll never force you to do anything. Remove the veil of misunderstanding from before your eyes and just let...God...reign.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
