I don’t feel very blessed these days. I feel beat up. The last few weeks have been rough. There hasn’t been anything tragic, just one discouraging situation after another. I’ve been struggling with daily headaches for almost two weeks now. That alone is enough to wear a person down, but there have been several other things, too.
- We were given a bed that was supposed to be great for my back but actually made things worse.
- My good friend at work was laid off a couple of weeks ago. Then her sister had a stroke last Wednesday.
- I discovered the other day that my son probably needs glasses.
- I was approached about a job on Tuesday that sounded like it would be a wonderful opportunity for me. I worked hard on getting my resume and cover letter updated, sent it in on Thursday and found out yesterday that they have already filled the position.
- Our landlord has been hassling us about getting our van fixed, but we have to save up enough money to get the work done on it so it will pass smog. Today they had it towed because they don’t want to look at it anymore.
I know that the Bible says that God wants to give good gifts to his children (Matthew 7:11), and that he has plans to prosper us (Jeremiah 29:11). I also know that he will give me what I ask for if I pray believing (Mark 11:24, Matthew 21:22), and that wants us to live abundant lives (John 10:10). I know that because that’s what I’ve been hearing from pastors and teachers like Joel Osteen and Bruce Wilkinson. I just want to know what I am supposed to do to receive those blessings, because I don’t see many of them coming my way. I see problems and trouble.
I feel cursed rather than blessed.
I’m not supposed to say that, though. I’m only supposed to speak words of faith. I’m supposed to keep my eyes on my blessings and keep hoping. Keep believing. Always keep believing. Because that is what we have to do, in spite of the evidence to the contrary. “Never mind how it looks. Keep your eyes on Jesus.”
I have some Bible verses taped to my computer monitor at work. Here are the words that I put there shortly after I was hired to remind myself:
He will keep in perfect peace all who trust in him, all whose thoughts are fixed on him!” Isaiah 26:3
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20
So let us come boldly to the throne of you gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:16
Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him. Hebrews 10:22
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
I don’t expect my life to be perfect. I’ve been taught, though, that I can expect God to be my healer. I’ve been taught that I can expect God to lavish his love on me. I’ve been taught that if I follow his commands, I will receive the blessings he has promised his children. I don’t know how many sermons I’ve sat through that told me that if I give my tithe, God will “throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” (Malachi 3:10)
I’ve spent my life trying my best to follow his commands. I’ve always tried to make the best decisions in the circumstances that I found myself in. I didn’t always succeed, but I tried.
I just would like something to go right, for once. I’d like to see those floodgates opening up. I’d like to see some healing come my way.
Over the past few years I’ve been trying to look for the opportunities that come my way and go for them, because I don’t want to miss out on a potential blessing that God is sending me. Sometimes, though, when I have reached for that opportunity and it has once again been snatched away just out of my reach, or what looks like a blessing turns out to not be one at all, I start to wonder why I try. I wonder why I keep putting myself in the position of being disappointed, again.
This is when I start hearing the voice of discouragement. It’s when I start thinking, “It’s easier to stop hoping and just accept that this is the way things are and you can’t expect better.” I start hearing, “Look how your Loving God is treating you. It‘s like he‘s looking for ways to make things harder instead of ways to bless you. He keeps teasing you with possibilities for things to get better so you‘ll get your hopes up and then lets it all fall apart. He doesn’t want the best for you. He just wants to see how long you can take the torture before you give up.”
I don’t really believe these things. It’s just the crazy stuff that goes through my head. I know it’s not true, but I’m just so tired of everything being hard. I’m just ready to see some of those blessings that I’ve been promised. I’m ready for some of that rest he promised, too.
(My husband would probably want me to let you know that there is a certain amount of PMS which is adding fuel to this diatribe. I always tell him that PMS isn’t the cause of my frustration or anger, it just makes me less able to tolerate the things that already drive me crazy.)
I know that I should start “counting my blessings” and looking for all the ways that God has provided. I also know that I will probably feel better in a few days. But, for anyone who has felt like they are living on the receiving end of the jokes of some Cosmic Prankster, I feel your pain. If you’ve figured out how to get out of that place, please let me in on your secret. (^_^)
Showing posts with label Joel Osteen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joel Osteen. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Who I Am Designed To Be
This past weekend I attended the Bethel Church women’s conference, Women of Impact. It was great fun and I loved spending my Friday night and Saturday with some of my most favorite ladies. That kind of thing doesn’t happen nearly enough.
One of the workshops I attended was “Impacting your Future” which was taught by Pastor Shekina Gottlieb, one of the pastors on staff at our church. She spoke about becoming the “Me I’m Meant To Be” rather than the “Me I Want To Be”, or the “Me I Pretend To Be”, or the “Me I Think I Should Be”, or the “Me Other People Want Me To Be”, or especially the “Me That Fails To Be”.
It made me think, how long did I spend being the “me I thought I should be” or the “me I was pretending to be“? I know that the “me I wanted to be” was impossible, so for quite a while, I was just the “me that was failing to be“.
This quote put a whole new perspective on the subject for me.
"When you fail to become the person God designed you to be, all the rest of us miss out of the gift you were made to give." Shekina Gottlieb
Realizing this, that my failure to become who God designed me to be means that everyone else misses out on something that only I can give them, forced me to take another look at myself. If I don’t become the woman that God meant for me to be, my kids miss out on the mom they were meant to have. It means that my husband doesn’t get the wife he was supposed to have. My friends don’t get the relationship with me that they should have had. By neglecting myself, my dreams, talents and gifts, I do my loved ones a disservice.
So, really, it’s not all about me. Crazy thought, huh?
My unwillingness to do what God has put in my heart to do, because I am scared or feel unworthy or whatever, affects more than my life. It affects all the lives I am supposed to touch.
On one hand, that puts a huge sense of responsibility on my shoulders. I know that I am not yet who God meant for me to be, so how many relationships have I already missed the opportunity on because I spent so much time being the “Me that Failed to Be.”
On the other hand, this also frees me from the idea that pursuing my dreams and developing my gifts and talents makes me self centered. It’s not selfish. God made me with a specific purpose in mind, as he did every other person on the planet. I believe that he puts the seeds of that purpose in each individual in the form of our dreams. He means for us to follow them.
Imagine if Shakespeare had decided that writing wasn’t a job that could pay the bills and that he should be a stone mason instead. What if Leonardo DaVinci had given in to feelings of inadequacy and stopped painting and sculpting and imagining and dreaming. Or if Mother Teresa had listened to all those around her who told her that it was crazy to try to go to the other side of the world to work with the poorest of the poor in India.
Now, I know that we aren’t all meant to do things like this that make us famous or successful by the world’s standards, but that doesn’t mean that our impact on the world won’t be great.
There is a woman at our church that recently retired from the position of Nursery Director after more than 30 years of service. For the past 30 years, Miss Jennifer has cared for the babies of all the people that came to the church so that they could sit in the service and listen to the pastor and hear the Word of God. Her presence allowed those pastors with young children to minister to hurting people. She changed diapers, rocked infants to sleep, comforted scared toddlers and encouraged exhausted new mommies for 30 years. Outside of our church, very few people know her name, but I believe that her service has made her famous in heaven.
Billy Graham obviously was very successful in his evangelism ministry and crusades around the world. He’s a very effective speaker and many people have come to know the Lord as a result of his sermons, but he didn’t put on his crusades alone. Thousands of people were involved in putting the crusades together. Before Mr. Graham even came into town, many people had spend hundreds of hours in prayer for the event. People had to invite their friends. So many people worked behind the scenes using their gifts to organize, plan and make the crusades happen. There were hundreds of people who were there to pray for all those who answered the call to follow the Lord. Billy Graham couldn’t pray for each one himself. He needed all those mature believers there, ready to work one on one with people, praying for their needs and ministering in ways that he couldn’t from up on the stage.
I bring up these examples because I think that it is really easy for us to get caught up in the idea that to do something great for God we have to be one of the famous people. We have to be like Michael W. Smith, Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen. We don’t. We have to be what God designed us each individually to be. We just have to be willing to do those things that he tells us to do.
So, what if, in your heart of hearts, you think that maybe you are supposed to be like the famous people? What then? I think you have to evaluate why you believe that. What are your motivations? Do you want that because being famous means you are important; because that’s the ruler you are using to measure your success? Or, do you believe that is God wants that for you, in spite of how you feel about it?
Recently, my husband met with the Senior Pastor at our church and was discussing the call that he feels God has on his life. He had the following conversation with the pastor:
“I just want to make sure that this is from God and is not something that I’m making up myself.”
The pastor looked him in the eye, “Does it scare you?”
“Absolutely,” Robert responded.
“Then it’s from God,” Pastor said.
So, if you believe that God has huge things for you to do, does it scare you? Do you feel inadequate to the task before you? If so, I believe that it is from God. I believe that he calls us to things that are bigger than what we feel we can do on our own because he wants us to rely on him completely. He wants us to know that what we are doing is not in our own power to accomplish. It‘s how he brings the attention and the glory back to himself.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:16
One of the workshops I attended was “Impacting your Future” which was taught by Pastor Shekina Gottlieb, one of the pastors on staff at our church. She spoke about becoming the “Me I’m Meant To Be” rather than the “Me I Want To Be”, or the “Me I Pretend To Be”, or the “Me I Think I Should Be”, or the “Me Other People Want Me To Be”, or especially the “Me That Fails To Be”.
It made me think, how long did I spend being the “me I thought I should be” or the “me I was pretending to be“? I know that the “me I wanted to be” was impossible, so for quite a while, I was just the “me that was failing to be“.
This quote put a whole new perspective on the subject for me.
"When you fail to become the person God designed you to be, all the rest of us miss out of the gift you were made to give." Shekina Gottlieb
Realizing this, that my failure to become who God designed me to be means that everyone else misses out on something that only I can give them, forced me to take another look at myself. If I don’t become the woman that God meant for me to be, my kids miss out on the mom they were meant to have. It means that my husband doesn’t get the wife he was supposed to have. My friends don’t get the relationship with me that they should have had. By neglecting myself, my dreams, talents and gifts, I do my loved ones a disservice.
So, really, it’s not all about me. Crazy thought, huh?
My unwillingness to do what God has put in my heart to do, because I am scared or feel unworthy or whatever, affects more than my life. It affects all the lives I am supposed to touch.
On one hand, that puts a huge sense of responsibility on my shoulders. I know that I am not yet who God meant for me to be, so how many relationships have I already missed the opportunity on because I spent so much time being the “Me that Failed to Be.”
On the other hand, this also frees me from the idea that pursuing my dreams and developing my gifts and talents makes me self centered. It’s not selfish. God made me with a specific purpose in mind, as he did every other person on the planet. I believe that he puts the seeds of that purpose in each individual in the form of our dreams. He means for us to follow them.
Imagine if Shakespeare had decided that writing wasn’t a job that could pay the bills and that he should be a stone mason instead. What if Leonardo DaVinci had given in to feelings of inadequacy and stopped painting and sculpting and imagining and dreaming. Or if Mother Teresa had listened to all those around her who told her that it was crazy to try to go to the other side of the world to work with the poorest of the poor in India.
Now, I know that we aren’t all meant to do things like this that make us famous or successful by the world’s standards, but that doesn’t mean that our impact on the world won’t be great.
There is a woman at our church that recently retired from the position of Nursery Director after more than 30 years of service. For the past 30 years, Miss Jennifer has cared for the babies of all the people that came to the church so that they could sit in the service and listen to the pastor and hear the Word of God. Her presence allowed those pastors with young children to minister to hurting people. She changed diapers, rocked infants to sleep, comforted scared toddlers and encouraged exhausted new mommies for 30 years. Outside of our church, very few people know her name, but I believe that her service has made her famous in heaven.
Billy Graham obviously was very successful in his evangelism ministry and crusades around the world. He’s a very effective speaker and many people have come to know the Lord as a result of his sermons, but he didn’t put on his crusades alone. Thousands of people were involved in putting the crusades together. Before Mr. Graham even came into town, many people had spend hundreds of hours in prayer for the event. People had to invite their friends. So many people worked behind the scenes using their gifts to organize, plan and make the crusades happen. There were hundreds of people who were there to pray for all those who answered the call to follow the Lord. Billy Graham couldn’t pray for each one himself. He needed all those mature believers there, ready to work one on one with people, praying for their needs and ministering in ways that he couldn’t from up on the stage.
I bring up these examples because I think that it is really easy for us to get caught up in the idea that to do something great for God we have to be one of the famous people. We have to be like Michael W. Smith, Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen. We don’t. We have to be what God designed us each individually to be. We just have to be willing to do those things that he tells us to do.
So, what if, in your heart of hearts, you think that maybe you are supposed to be like the famous people? What then? I think you have to evaluate why you believe that. What are your motivations? Do you want that because being famous means you are important; because that’s the ruler you are using to measure your success? Or, do you believe that is God wants that for you, in spite of how you feel about it?
Recently, my husband met with the Senior Pastor at our church and was discussing the call that he feels God has on his life. He had the following conversation with the pastor:
“I just want to make sure that this is from God and is not something that I’m making up myself.”
The pastor looked him in the eye, “Does it scare you?”
“Absolutely,” Robert responded.
“Then it’s from God,” Pastor said.
So, if you believe that God has huge things for you to do, does it scare you? Do you feel inadequate to the task before you? If so, I believe that it is from God. I believe that he calls us to things that are bigger than what we feel we can do on our own because he wants us to rely on him completely. He wants us to know that what we are doing is not in our own power to accomplish. It‘s how he brings the attention and the glory back to himself.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:16
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