The Shortest Way vs. The Best Way

When I was a kid, I loved reading the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, where at the end of a page you have two or three choices to choose from, and you turn to the corresponding page based on your choice.   However, I did things a little differently than most kids. I was concerned about missing something, so every time I reached a page where I had to make a choice, I used a piece of paper to mark the page. That way, every time I reached a dead end, I could return to the original page, make the other choice and keep going.

I wanted to keep making the right choices in order to get to the result I wanted; and even if I made all the right choices the first time, I still wanted to go back to see where the other choices would take me.

God sees our lives similar to the way we look at the Choose Your Own Adventure books. We can look ahead to see the result of each decision in the book; God already knows what will happen based on the decisions that we make.

Over the past few years I have learned more about trusting that God knows the best way to get to the destination He has created for me. That does not, however, mean that it will be the quickest way to our destination.  

At times, it may even look hopeless, or not make any sense at all.

Quickest ≠  Best

In Exodus 13, God was leading the Israelites out of Egypt. However, He did not lead them by what they would have considered the best, quickest route:

 "When Pharoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, 'If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.'"  Exodus 13:17

Even if a path is shorter in distance, it does not always mean that it is the best way to go. God knew the Israelites were not prepared for the war that was sure to happen in the Philistine country, so He lead them the longer way. This definitely wouldn't make sense, on the surface. However, God leads us down the path He has prepared us for.

I have seen this to be true in my own life in many areas: I did not meet my husband until we were both at just the right point in our lives (even though our paths undoubtedly crossed at least a couple times years before we officially met). Five years ago, I was not prepared for my career to go in the direction it is now going in. Two years ago, I would not have been prepared to help my mom adjust to life without my dad.

Maybe you are going through similar situations. Or maybe your situations are a lot darker and full of unimaginable pain.  Remember that God loves you, and He is preparing you for what's ahead, just as He prepared you for the things in your past.

The New You

Blank sheets of paper are always inviting to me, because they represent a fresh start, a blank canvas. Before I ever post anything online, it is usually written in ink on paper first, marked with notes as thoughts come to mind. Every blank page has the potential to be filled with a God-inspired message. Sometimes this is something only for me; other times it is something to be shared.

As a writer with a desire to share inspiration with others, I am excited about the potential of shaping a message to encourage other people. But then there is also the possibility that when I’m done, the page will be filled with a rambling of words that won’t go anywhere beyond the ink strokes that put them there.

Each blank page is a new start; so is our life in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 states:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

In a notebook, it does not matter what was written on previous pages, just as it does not matter what is in your past. What was written in the past, in your life as on pieces of paper, does not determine what is written on your today. That mistake you made that cost you a friendship in high school? That relationship that was a dead end? That fight with your parents during your college years that resulted in tension that is still there, years later?

In Christ, the behaviors, thought patterns, and seasons of life that cause all of those things are the old that is gone.  Just because you did, doesn’t mean you still do.

You are a new creation, created in Christ Jesus.

Unplug to Connect

Text messages.

Phone calls.

Facebook posts.

Twitter updates.

Emails.

Smart phones.

Laptops.

Instead of thinks that go “bump” in the night, we have things that go “beep” in the night. No matter where we go, in today’s world it is normal to be constantly connected; just one click away from another person. Or hundreds of people.

As I write this, my phone is just a few inches away, with the volume turned up halfway. As I consider turning it off, thoughts immediately begin dancing in front of my mind.

What if the person I have dinner plans with cancels? How would I ever know in time? What if my husband needs me? What if someone from work tries to call me to tell me something important?

When was the last time you turned off your cell phone? Or did you know you could even do that to an iPhone (or any smartphone, for that matter)? Why are we afraid to disconnect from the world?

I believe one part of this is that we feel indispensable within our responsibilities. We like knowing things as soon as they happen, as if it would make our responses any more effective. Sometimes it would, but quite often, what other people need from us can wait fifteen minutes.

Jesus had many things to take care of while He was on earth. There were sick people that needed to be healed, blind people that needed to see, and those twelve disciples that He was teaching and preparing. His disciples, after all, needed to learn as much as possible while He was here, right?

This is where we learn what the most important connection is. Let’s look at Matthew 14:22-25 together, which takes place right after Jesus feeds the 5,000 people:

Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake, while he sent the people home. After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone. Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water.

The disciples needed Jesus to help them, yet Jesus put time in God’s presence before everything else. Jesus knew that the wind would stop, and that the disciples were not in any severe danger.

This made me think: If Jesus was not too busy to spend time with God, then why are we? Why do we feel like we must constantly be available to everyone, at the expense of being available for God?

God created this world, and He is capable to watch over our situations while we spend time in His presence.  

Take just ten minutes today, turn off your phone (or leave it on silent in the other room), and spend those ten minutes with God. Read the Bible, sing along to your favorite worship song…and trust that God is taking care of everything that you’re concerned about.

Trusting God with your Today

“If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.” Exodus 16:3

The thing I feared most had just happened. After working for two and a half years at one company, the economy took a bad turn and my company began downsizing, and my job was one that was cut.

The following three months included the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and lots of job searching. It was the hardest situation that I had to face in my working life. I had landed that job right at the end of my senior year of high school, and although I had some problems and complaints about my situation at the time, I was not ready to start over somewhere else. Suddenly, the things I had been unhappy about didn’t seem all that bad, and all of the "if only..." statements began dancing around in my head. Even after I had started my new job, I still found myself missing my co-workers and my old job.

Previous situations always seem more desirable when you’re facing the unknown future, and struggling on your way to it. Past struggles seem to dim in intensity once you’re facing something you’re not sure you will be able to get through.

It doesn’t mean the old challenges were any easier. It’s simply the fact that the old is familiar, and you’re not facing it now.

Whatever your current struggles and challenges are, they are an invitation to trust God more. Just ask Him to show you how you can trust Him in your current season. God’s command in Exodus 16:4 required the Israelites to trust Him daily by gathering just enough bread for the current day.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions.”

God calls us to trust Him with our today. Each “today” brings us to the next place God wants us to be.

I eventually returned to the original company I worked for, but it was not until I gave my life over to God and allowed Him to begin changing me. When I returned, I was a very different person from who I was when I left. This is what God desires for you: continuous growth in Him, to become more like Jesus, and in turn, reach out to others who are facing a tough season of their life.

What previous seasons or situations seem easier compared to what you are dealing with now?

What challenge are you facing right now that God is asking you to trust Him with?

How can you step forward to trust God with your “today”?

Movement and Success

Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." Luke 5:5

We all want to be successful at something. Whether it's raising a family, having a strong marriage, playing a sport, or developing a career, success is what we strive for.

However, we as Christians are called to more than just worldly success.

Take this story from the beginning of Jesus' ministry.  Although Simon is who we hear from, there is actually a group of fishermen near where Jesus is speaking. First, Jesus borrows Simon's boat, while he and the other fishermen are cleaning their nets. One Jesus is done speaking to the crowd, He tells Simon to go out to where the water is deeper and let down the nets.

Simon tells Jesus that they had been working all night, and failed to catch anything...but then he agrees to give it one more try, because "Jesus said so."

This act of obedience leads to the biggest catch the fishermen had ever experienced. "When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break."

Listening to Jesus' guidance resulted in success. But that is not where these men stopped.

Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will fish for people." So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Luke 5:10-11

After the biggest success they ever had, they left everything behind and followed Jesus.

I felt God speak two things into my heart through these verses:

• Even if we experience success while folliwng Jesus, He may ask us to move on to something greater. Just because your career is successful, it does not mean God will never call you to something else. For example, in our church leadership, we have a former personal trainer, banker, and school teacher, just to name a few. Imagine what they would have missed out on if they had decided to stay where they were, verses following God's invitation.
• We are not called to stand still. We are called to follow Jesus. If we stay where we are just because it's always worked, we will miss the greater things God wanted us to experience.We may be lead to go somewhere new, or stay where we are but go deeper into the connections that we have.  As God calls us to move, we should move to keep growing in Christ.

No matter what we do in life, we have a call to reach out to people.

Hospitality

I am currently reading A Life that Says Welcome by Karen Ehman, and I actually bought this book while yelling, "Help! I have no idea how to do this!"

This was brought on because of a verse that has convicted me for a while, and it just so happens to come right after my life verse. Here they are:

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." Romans 12:12-13.

Practice hospitality. How exactly do I do that? I pictured having a huge meal, with appetizers and nice music playing in the background, and having every inch of the house clean, all of the time. I always thought that entertaining and hospitality were the same thing. Since I was raised in a home where people hardly ever came over, you can imagine how the thought of having people come into our home overwhelms me. I was always the one going over to other friends' houses growing up, and when their parents would apologize for the mess, I would look around thinking, what mess?

The lesson that God taught Karen that she shared in her book is that there is a difference between "entertaining" and offering hospitality. As she says, "Entertaining puts the emphasis on you and how you can impress others. Offering hospitality puts the emphasis on others and strives to meet their physical and spiritual needs so that they feel refreshed, not impressed, when they leave your home."

Quite often, planning parties and preparing to have people in our home that aren't used to cat hair everywhere and bread crumbs on the counters sends me into a frantic cleaning spree. I feel like there are many times when I miss something that is out of place, and I notice it after people have already arrived.

So, you can imagine how relieved I felt when I read this particular quote in Karen's book:

...offering hospitality is much more about the condition of your heart than the condition of your home.

Everything doesn't have to be perfect. What matters more is how I embrace the people who enter my home. If I practice Biblical hospitality, when they leave my home they won't be thinking about the misplaced sock that was under the coffee table, or that there was a light bulb out in our ceiling light. What they will remember is the feeling of community, the feeling that someone has invested in them spiritually and emotionally, and they will be encouraged to share Christ's love with others.

Circumstances and Perspectives

I am on week four of the Unglued Online Bible study, and the first couple weeks were quite uneventful as far as facing moment where I would become unglued. I was thinking that I had this managing emotions stuff under control. Then week three happened.

It started with a sick cat and a trip to the vet on Monday…

…then it lead to a discovery of some unwelcome flea guests, of which we managed to clean up round one on Tuesday…

…then a busy and rough workday for both me and my husband, on the same exact day as our church small group on Thursday…

…then on my way home from my other small group the very next day, my check engine light came on, and the repair would not be covered under my maintenance plan at the dealership I bought it from because they are not a Mazda dealership…

…and finally, 11 p.m. on Saturday night, we had a mouse running around in our closet. Which, might I add, had piles of stuff on the floor that the mouse was able to hide in until just the right moment to run out at our feet.

Needless to say, I had reached my limit by Saturday night, and I became quite unglued when the mouse actually ran over my foot.

That is why these words in Chapter 7 stood out to me:

“…if only I were more in the habit of having a thankful heart full of praises instead of a grumbling heart consumed with circumstances.”

It’s a matter of making the habit of being thankful. Putting circumstances in God’s perspective, instead of just my own.  Praising God even if nothing seems to be going right…after all, the world is still turning, and I’m still breathing.

So last week in review with a new perspective:

I have two pets who entertain me, are companions (sometimes, anyway), and are normally healthy…fleas aren’t so fun, but we got free medication, which helps us a lot financially, and we caught them early so there weren’t that many of them…both of us have jobs and we have a great group that meets in our house every week…we both have cars, that are in good condition other than a couple minor things that need to be fixed…and finally , the mouse was tossed outside the same night, and I got a great laugh at my husband as he was chasing the mouse across our backyard yelling “go little mouse, go, go!!!”

Lysa also says, "...how powerful it is to shift from an attitude to gratitude and to praise our God in the midst of it all. When I do this, my circumstances may not instantly change, but the way I look at those circumstances certainly does.” By looking at the above circumstances with a new perspective, I believe it has opened the door to me being able to look at other circumstances with a new perspective as they come.

Today, I was allowing myself to get all worked up about a situation that hasn’t even happened yet. On my lunch break, I chose to sit and read my Bible. I looked up verses on being anxious, and 30 minutes later, I had a much better perspective and I went back to work with the reminder that I should “give all [my] worries and cares to God, for He cares about [me].” I was reminded to take each day as it comes.

God wants to take our worries. He wants to help us not be controlled by our emotions. If we waste time worrying, or being upset over something, or stuffing our emotions, we become ineffective in what God has given us to do in this very moment.