When the noise stops

Hey there. I can't believe that it's been a year since we last talked. While I know a year may not seem like a long time, it is. A year is someone's lifetime. A year could be the difference between a hello and a good bye.

 As we get older, a year becomes more and more important in the grand scheme of things. A year goes by quick when we get so caught up in "living"  that we forget to have a life. We get so caught up in "living" that we forget to do for ourselves. We forget who we are.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a co-worker. He tells me that while he normally is a positive person, dealing with the customers on the job had made him jaded. This made me wonder. What is his positivity wrapped in that he was able to become jaded? What was his foundation in? It was at that moment, in the still of the night, when I heard God's voice say "remind him whose he is". It was in that moment that he reminded me whose I was also.

Isiah 40:31 says: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

It is in the moments, when the noise stops, that he reminds us who we are in him. It is in the moments, when the noise stops, that he reminds us that our strength comes from him. It is in him that we find our rest and our peace. It is in him that we can rest all burdens.

I believe that in this season, He is reminding us that He should be where we find ourselves wrapped in.. Quite frankly, there's no place I'd rather be.

Silence is golden

I found myself in the silence of the middle of the night deep in thought. Now, this has not been a rare thing for me as of late. It seems as if it has been in the silence of the middle of the night where my mind has been the freest. What is it about quiet that liberates us? What is it about being able to remove ourselves from the noise of the everyday that allows us to really think? Why is it that people are afraid of silence? What makes silence so scary that we fill our lives to the brink with noise. Noise from family, noise from work, just noise.

We live our lives day to day running around not taking the time to just stop and enjoy the silence. We live our lives and spend our time in search of things to fill the void that the noise leaves when the noise leaves us that we don't take the time to just be. I mean how many of us could have survived 40 days in the desert or how many of us could have survived being away from the crowd where the only "living" soul for miles around was our Heavenly Father. (I realize the irony in "living").

As we embark on a New Year with new opportunities and new things to discover, we need to take time to figure out who we are without the noise.  We need the time to get away from the noise and figure out who we are at our very core. What would it be like if we all took the time to figure out at our core who we are? What would it be like if we in figuring out who we are, have a conversion and start a movement the way the early Christians did. What would it be like if like them, we knew who we were enough to be able to pass it on to those who needed to know of a better way... Truly what would it be like if..... I'll let you figure it out...

As for me, I am going to enjoy the silence that is the middle of the night... I don't know what I will find, but what I do know is that when the noise is gone, it is easier to hear from my creator. When the noise is gone, it is easier to hear from God and to know where he is leading me.

Happy New Year and here's to finding time to be noiseless. 

How will history remember you?

When the Lord gets a hold of us, sometimes we just have to let him take us where he wants us to go. No, scratch that, all the time we need to let his take us where he wants us to go. I say this because we may have our plans, but, he has something far greater in mind for us than we could ever imagine.

How will history remember you?

We never see the full extent of our legacies. Generations upon generations upon generations see the magnitude of what we have done even if we cannot see it in the moment. You know, the things you consider ordinary in the moment or the things that you are begrudgingly doing. Yeah, those things. I can think of a few stories throughout the bible where the people in the moment did not know the impact their stories were going to have on future generations. I do not think the Hebrew boys - Hanania, Mishaek, and Azaria knew the significance they would have in history when they were thrown in the fiery furnace. Along the same lines, I do not think Daniel knew the significance of him being thrown in the lion's den. Nor did Moses when he struck the rock, or Joshua when he said "As for me and my house...." or John when he talked about Jesus' divinity or Ruth or Deborah or even Rahab for that matter.... I do not believe that these men and women knew that history would remember them as being great.

How will history remember you?

When the Lord gets a hold of us, we need to just let him take us where he wants us to go. Our past present and future are wrapped up with him. It is up to us to do what he instructs. It is up to us to do what he directs us to do..... Who knows how history will remember you because of it. 

Finding Peace in the Closed Door

If I was to tell the truth, I would have to say I am happy. Happier than I've been in months. I find myself in this truth having been out of work for almost a month. I thought I had the perfect opportunity. You know the one that would jump start this illustrious career. I thought God had ordained it. Maybe he did. Maybe he did so that he could then close the Door.

Why would he? Why would he present such a perfect thing, to then close a door? I can think of a few reasons. It could have been me. I may not have been ready. It could have been that I was ready, just not for that place. It could have been that he wanted me to see something that I would have not seen otherwise. Why would he have closed such a perfect opportunity?

If I had to commit to something, I would say that he closed the door to remind me. He closed it to remind me that there are things I need to do for him. He needed to remind me that it is in him that I need to rely on. He is giving me my David on the run moment.

I have mentioned David in other posts and I keep coming back to him because he has such an amazing story of hope, faith, and trust. At this point in the story, David is on the run from Saul. This is after he's been anointed king. So imagine how he felt. He was anointed king. He was given the ultimate job opportunity, but he couldn't step into it yet. He had to take the time to learn how to navigate that world without forgetting himself or where he came from. He had to learn how to navigate that world and still keep God at the forefront. The only way to be able to do this is by knowing who God is in his life. The way in which God drives this home is to strip us of the things in which we rely on that take us away from him. Once he has done this, we are then forced to reexamine the role he has in our lives.

Maybe you have noticed these moments in your life. The moments when everything feels like it is in place, but then the bottom falls out. I would venture to say that God is getting us ready for greatness. He is getting us ready to become "kings" and "queens". He is getting us ready, but we need to know who he is. We need to know how he has operated in our lives because we will hit moments where who we are will be questioned. We will hit moments where we will need to stand up for who we are and who God is. It will be in these moments that we remember the things that God has done for us and how he has looked after us. It is in these moments that we can stand the strongest.

So what if he closes the door. I am willing to bet my life on the fact that God has better for us. We just need to hold fast, hold steady, and be faithful.  

Struggles

*I pray that wherever this finds you, it gives you the encouragement that you need to press forward and not give up.*

We go through struggles every day. Whether it be on the job, our families, our friends etc... We struggle to get us to dig down deep, to get us to think about what it is that we need to possibly turn around; Not only with in us, but with the world around us. Sometimes we struggle because we need to struggle. If life stayed good, we wouldn't learn about who we are because we wouldn't take the time out to stop and spend time with God getting to know HIM.

He uses our struggles to teach us to place our cares on HIM. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus tells us to rest in him when we are weary. To lay all of our burdens on him... How do we learn to do this if we aren’t forced too? I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember ever doing it naturally…. It was through struggling that I began to depend on God more and more than depending on my own understanding of things.... It was through struggling that I am learning that God knows our potential and that HE wants us to live up to it 100%. It is through struggling where we learn that we are stronger than we thought.

So let us rejoice because God never puts anything on us that we cannot handle and once HE knows we can be trusted with the little things, he will start to move us into where HE needs us to be and give us more. Think about it, how can you be given more if you are not a steward over less?

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.... Proverbs 3:5-7

Purpose Driven People

The most dangerous thing you can do is to live with purpose. Purpose scares people.  It scars people because you have a set thing in which you are trying to achieve. It's not only this achievement that scares people,  but it's the fact that you are being driven by something greater than you.  The person being driven by purpose recognizes that it's not anything tangible that they are striving for.  You cannot touch it and it defies all humanly logic. You don't take the job because you're making more money etc... You take the job understanding that you are supposed to be there for a time,  whatever that time is. You try to justify it using human logic,  but you know deep down that those reasons fall short.

People are scared of purpose driven people because you cannot deter them from their purpose.  People try their hardest to place purpose driven people into a box to understand them.  What they fail to realize is that a purpose driven person cannot be understood because in order to understand them you have to understand their purpose and who but the Creator knows the purpose  of the creation. You cannot ask a car what its purpose is, you have to ask the one who created it. 

People are scared of a purpose driven person because that person knows who they are.  They know that at the end of the day,  their power comes from the one who created their purpose.  It doesn't come from their accomplishments or their ability.  They understand that their purpose is divine. They understand that they will always be on the outside looking in. They understand that they will never fit in and they will be OK with that.  They will be of the world yet not apart of it. They will operate by a set of rules that defy human logic because they are operating based on the directives of the Creator for it is the Creator that knows the purpose of the creation.

I challenge you as we get closer to Christmas and the start of the new year to tap into the Creator to find what your purpose is. 

It was not a mistake.

I had this whole post written about changing your mindset etc... but you know  what,  I don't really feel that its authentic. It just seemed rushed and not thought out. I felt like it would have been a disservice.  I did not feel like it was my best work. It not being my best work is not giving God the glory he deserves. I read some where, probably Facebook, a quote that says Our talent is a gift from God, what we do with it is our gift back to him. I always want to be able to give him the best gift that I can possibly give. I always want to do my best.

It is in doing my best that my light shines and everyone else is given the chance to shine as well. My life has been a series of taking chances. While the phrase goes "taking chances and making mistakes", I don't make mistakes. I make choices. Every choice has led to today... It has led to this moment. It has led to who I am today and who I am becoming. Nothing is a mistake. It's all just experiences.

We have to come to a place where we can feel it in our souls the fact that nothing is ever a mistake. We have to understand that every moment is all a part of whatever journey we are on. If it helps you heal old wounds, if it helps you better understand a situation, why should it ever be viewed as a mistake?

Why should we feel like our ''bad" decisions are bad? What makes them bad? Maybe because we feel bad about the situation after the fact? But why do we feel bad? Are we letting other people dictate to us what we should be feeling? are we letting culture, tradition dictate to us how to feel, how to act, and how to be?

My challenge to you is to examine why you feel the way you do about life and most importantly your choices. This will help you in viewing your "mistakes" as experiences. Because you like me, don't make mistakes.