Just When I Think I've Got It All Figured Out...

Isn't it fun when a plan comes together? Isn't that exciting? But sometimes...it doesn't work out that way.

Boy, just when I think I've got all the answers, God smiles on me (and probably smirks a little) and reminds me that I am, in fact, still growing and learning.

I experienced this week another one of those times when I really just knew in my gut what I was supposed to be doing for the cause of Christ only to be humbled once more.

Nope, God said. Not quite. Not just yet.

Wrong motives. Wrong focus. Wrong timing.

• You see, it's not that my motives were necessarily impure. But they are certainly not mature enough to be where I thought God wanted me.

• And my focus was certainly on Him. But more than that, my focus was on MY ideas of how I should be serving and not on surrendering my life and purpose to HIM.

• And timing? Absolutely off-kilter. I have been called right now, at this time in my life, to provide for my family and clean up the monstrous financial mess that I have received.

I've said it before, and true to form here I am: I am a Dreamer. Always one foot in the nebula.

And I. Dream. Big.

And when you are so incredibly in love as I am, those Dreams are even bigger as I conspire to 'slosh God's Love on all that I meet.'

So, what it comes down to is: do I trust God's Dreams to be bigger and better than my own?

Right now, this sums it up:

"Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him." ~Rom 12:1-3MSG

My everyday, walking around life, called to provide for and raise a family - given over to God.

My life and service to Him are not about what I can do for God. It is nothing but the outpouring from within of all that He has done for me.

Today, yes, I will be content to be a nosehair/toenail/eyelash in the body of Christ.