Faith

A conversation with one I love. So whatever you take upon yourself to do, work at it with all your heart as working for The Lord, not for men. So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Colossians 3:23-24, Matthew 5:16 Been pondering your words. I know you are not soliciting a response, and certainly, you\’ve had enough advice from us over years that you don\’t need more of that right now. I just feel like putting my thoughts to words this morning, so humor me? I have always known you to be a person of great passion and great ambition. You think there is nothing you cant do once you put your mind to it, and I totally agree. At this point in your life you must dig deep and find that one thing that you know has always fired you up…your primal cause. Your reason for being. We all have it, but so few find it because of the distractions along the way…the shiny things along the path, the secondary causes that show up disguised as urgent and important, the present traps the enemy sets for us based upon our past experiences …all of thes are his tactics to steal, kill and destroy. But you are bigger and better not because of who you are, but in spite of who you are because of the one that permanently abides in you. You have proven that time and again. Every now and then you you make a brilliant choice or come to profound judgement about a thing that amazes me. Your mature assessment of the (nameless boy) thing is an example. I agree. The truth is I don\’t believe that was ever meant to be, but then who am I to say? God is sovereign, and in His divine plan he gave you, us, a most wonderful and priceless gift in Olivia Harper Goetsch. At the same time I am convinced at this point that the vehicle and cisrcumstances through which he provided that gift are no longer relevant and are not an ongoing part of his purpose. There are many great things that have come to pass out of the most miserable of circumstances, but how crazy it would be to not separate those events from the resultant prize? Always remember Michelle that God is who He says he is and he does what he says he will do, but he will never override your personal choice. The key is to examine every path on the basis of pleasing ONLY him and you WILL find that one thing. We all want that and when it eludes us we are incomplete, frustrated and just plain miserable. Yet for some reason we would rather endure the price of pain and struggle of that misalignment than the lesser pain of change. If we knew without doubt the priceless rewards of a full engagement with our purpose would we not risk our very life for it, yet alone the reputation acceptance and approval of peers, or even personal comfort? One of my mentors reminds me that very often it takes the pain if staying the same to become greater than the pain of change before we will do anything about it. I heard a funny story the other day (which is not true of course…I mean the story is not true) When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden he came to him and sasid, \”You know Adam, you\’ve been looking kind of lonely lately. Ive been thinkiong about this idea. I would like to create a companion for you. A woman. She will be everything that you could ever imagine in a companion. Not only that, she will literally worship you, well not quite, but almost. She will cook for you, never argue with you, always be happy around you…etc. Wow, said Adam. Thats sounds awesome, but it also sounds very expensive. Whats something like that going to cost me? An arm and a leg, says God. Adam is shocked. \”An arm and a leg?\” thats prettuy steep. What can you do for a rib?\” Most of the time we dont have the best in life because we think its too costly. Or we dont think it through well enough to realize the benefits. Or, we engage in negative self talk about our purpose that is simply not true. Usually negative thoughts about failure and struggle and so forth. The bible says, \”As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.\” We must be very careful about what we think. Thoughts have presence. They find a home. They will always be felt by those around you and will have an impact on your success or failure in life. I\’m thinking about five things that I heard recently that cause us to become negative about ourselves and our present circumstances. Discouragement is a huge obstacle to succeeding in our purpose. Its so easy to become discouraged. One of the main reasons for discouragement is a focus on self. We get a great idea, or someone invites us into an opportunity and at first it sounds great. Or some circumstance or life event fires us up to pursue a new career. Its exciting, but almost immediately we start thinking about reasons why we cant to it. And we start telling ourselves that we\’re not good enough. Or we dont deserve it, or we\’re not smart enough. On the other hand as we take up the task of preparation an study we find it becomes increasingly difficult to make it through…transport problems…time away from Liv…hard classes and difficult assignments. Thats the enemy doing what he does best. His task is to dis the courage we started out with, and in this he has become very proficient over the eons. But he underestimates those such as yourself who are saturated with a Divine passion that can deflect anything