Divine Veracious Plans

Have you ever devised the best plan for your life? It's perfect. Your metaphorical ducks are in a row.

And then,...Life Happens.

Things change.

Plans shift from the precise order you designed.

What do you do?

You become like a toddler, kicking and screaming up at the Heavens.

"What are YOU thinking, GOD? Don't YOU see? YOU'RE messing up the Plan!"

This has been my scenario for the last couple of months.

I make this "fantastic, infalliable plan."

 HE could never create something as masterful as this plan

 and I just know this  is what HE has for me...

You would think I'd learn not to make plans without consulting my all-knowing Creator.

But this poor erring human must learn the hard way.
HIS plans are not always my plans....

I have to learn to acknowledge HIM when creating plans.
And know that I won't always understand HIS Purpose behind HIS Plan.
"Man's steps are ordered by the Lord. How then can a man understand his way?" Proverbs 20:24
I just have to trust the Divine with my life.
HE created it, so I must trust HIM.
My Dad used to sing a song that says,
 " When you don't understand, when you can't see HIS plan-trust HIS Heart." 
 I am learning (the painful way) to trust in HIM with everything that I hold.
HE loves me and HE has artfully designed a magnificant plan just for me.

"I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own;
it is not for man to direct his steps."-Jeremiah 10:23



So continue to guide my willful steps, God...I'll follow.

Transcend in 2010

2010. Just saying it makes me feel evolving. It's like breathing cold air after a hot, hard workout.

*deep breath* ahhh,...refreshing.

I must say 2009 was an interesting year for me. I'm ashamed of my 2009 life in some aspects, proud in others...

Confession? It was a spiritually low year for me. I feel like I didn't push as hard as I could have, dug as deep as I should have, climbed as high I would have. I was a mellow Christian in '09. 

But.

It's 2010.

A new start.

Fresh.

Clean.

I'm ready. I've started cleaning out that old rubbish that clogs down my soul. Those habits & tendencies that drag me down.

I am going to transcend to new levels in 2010.

I'm tired of being a normal, average Christian.

It's time to rise above medocrity, the levels of the oridinary.

It's time to be Christ-like.

Revelations

Have you ever opened your Life Book and flipped back a few chapters? Glanced over the pages, remembered the stories & gazed at the photographs?

And thought, "What if...?"

What if I had went to that school?

What if I had continued that relationship?

What if I had went on that trip?

What if I had chosen that profession?

What if, what if, what if....

I did today. I recalled the last 5 years in all of it's triumphs, heartaches, mountains, & valleys.

I reread some old emails from people who were once close to me... And the "What ifs" started.

I sat for over an hour just thinking about what my life would be now if I had made that no, a yes.

That one decision... I wonder what story my current Life Book pages would tell?

But.

I've learned that decision made cannot be unmade...

Thankfully in some situations.

I'm am who I am because of these past 5 years.

I like my Story.

Yes, there are mistakes throughout my Story.

Wrong Choices. Right Choices made at the Wrong Times.

But those mistakes make me who I am.

Thankfully my Story is still continuing.

The Great Editor gives me a new start each day on a new page.

Thankfully I've learned that He doesn't rate my Life Book based off page 237 in Chapter 8.

But He does rate my Life based off the ENTIRE story.

Thank God I'm not to the end yet...

I have another new clean white page.
There are no "what ifs?" on this blank page.

Just a new start...

For me to continue my Life Story.

Do Hard Things

Doing hard things means being diligent in the small. Getting across an ocean means many strokes of rowing. Scoring a film means many mornings of getting up early. Changing the world means changing our everyday actions. These are the hard things that we need to be doing if we really want to make a difference - the small, seemingly unexciting tasks that we so often procrastinate on, or ignore altogether.

- http://www.therebelution.com/blog/2005/12/hard-things%e2%84%a2-come-in-small-packages/

What do I want?

I want a good life in which I make significiant changes in my world.
I want a house… trendy but homey.
I want a job I can leave at the door when I come home at night.
I want to work with people.
I want a job I’ll enjoy & make a good living with.
I want someone to laugh, cry, & dream with.
I want to travel.
I want to learn to cook.
I want family vacations, weekend get aways, and girl’s night outings.
I want two boys.
I want to adopt a child from another country.
I want to volunteer at shelters/ hospitals.
I want yearly trips with my Bestie.
I want to found a school in an impoverished village.
I want to wake in the morning with someone holding me close.
I want to grow old knowing I've made a difference in people's lives.

I don't need to be well-known.
I don't need trophies or Nobel Prizes.

I just want to change my world in my own small, significant ways…

This is what I want.

Pearls & Perils; life on a jungle trail

At the beginning of the summer I asked God for one (of many) thing; that I would experience a Spiritual Awakening in my personal life. I don’t know why but for some reason I am always amazed when I get what I ask for… It’s incredible!
Back to my Awakening, am I suddenly, one month into the summer, a Super Christian? No, most definitely not. But I am beginning to experience a change; it feels like a cool Northern wind is blowing through me. It’s refreshing, sometimes chilling & I get the occasion goosebumps. This Divine wind has began to blow away the junk and garbage that clutter up my relationship with Jesus. This Wind changes mind-sets, shifts relationships and alters spiritual landscapes. During this time of spiritual change I’ve had to learn to trust my Star-Breather, lean on Him and let Him carry me. You see, " the way is an experience…"*
This spiritual journey can’t be smooth bricked garden path. How boring! What would be the challenge in that? There would be nothing to learn or experience. No, the way that I travel is a wild jungle trail. One minute I bask in a tropical sunset, then in the next I’m in a constricting battle. It’s the way that adds character & beauty to my life. It’s a Life-altering Experience.
And who better to have with me than Jesus Christ, my own personal Tarzan. He rescues this clumsy, stubborn Jane, from ferocious self- doubt and constricting fears & failures. He swings into my Life with a rush. He delivers me from pain and hurt. He does these things simply because HE loves me…He adores me!
As the song says, " He is jealous for me. His love is a hurricane and I am a tree. Bending beneath the weight of His Glory."**
He loves me in my pitiful, needy, complaining state. Simply, powerfully , relentlessly, and jealously. Because He knows that one day this Jane will arrive at the end of her epic jungle tale & she will become the eternal Bride of Tarzan. And that is why, Tarzan is so very patient with His willful Jane. He sees the End of the Trail and knows Jane's outcome. And so… He waits.
And that Divine Wind blows Jane’s hair away from her face and she keeps walking down that gorgeous Trail full of unknown perils and pearls.

*Leonard Sweet- SoulTsunami
**Kim Walker- How he Loves lyrics

Atomic Displays of Christ

John 9:1-7
" Neither this man nor his parents sinned but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in his life." Then Jesus healed blind man…

Question: Are the works of God being displayed in our Life?

The blind man didn’t sin or somehow cause his blindness. His blindness was due to some previous error on his part. He was blind from birth. He lived with this defect/problem for years without release. Then one day his ailment was healed in a miraculous event that not only opened his eyes, but the eyes of many. His healing had an atomic effect on those around him. His life was a display of Christ’s mighty redemption. He, in a divine moment, became an example of the Savior’s power, A work of God. Imagine his story after that moment. Those around him knew his story and that there was no way that his story would have a " happily everafter" ending. Then in a radical event, they witnessed a complete 180 turn. They were changed by simply witnessing the active display of his Life Change. How incredible! Are the works of God being displayed in mine and your Life? Are people changed by seeing our Life Change? Are you a living, breathing display of Christ? Think on it.