Waiting

When you make the decision to trust God, you end up spending a lot of time waiting for Him do things.

But waiting isn't wasting.

You can go off on your own and try to make it work. You can spend your entire life trying to get things done on your pensive schedule. You can even try to figure it all out... but in the end, you'll find that you were wasting your time. Because the goal of life isn't to accomplish. It's to trust God.

Waiting builds trust. It forces the struggle out. The discomfort of waiting on God forces us to kneel. True dependence is born and raised in the waiting. So waiting, as annoying as it is sometimes, is God's way of leading us to our goal in life.

If you refuse to wait, you refuse to learn to trust.

And again, fear pops up. It's always fear that tries to hold us back. I have found that the major reason I don't like waiting on God is because I'm afraid He's not going to come through.

But if we could just see that He already has come through! Like, every time I start getting afraid, God's there pointing me back to the cross. Pointing me to His perfect love for me: "Jack, if I died on the cross for you, wouldn't I also freely give you all things?" There's nothing held back from us guys! It's already been given fully!

We might not be able to understand everything right now. But we can understand that His love for us is perfect. We can understand because He already proved it. That's firm and solid ground. It's safe to trust in.


I've had this Newsboys song stuck in my head all week.

"You stay the same through the ages  
Your Love never changes
There may be pain in the night
But joy comes in the morning."

Listen, if you're in the night, just take a nap. Right? The morning is coming. The morning always comes. When the morning comes, it won't be time to sleep. It won't be time to wait. So if you're waiting for morning, rest in the night. The morning IS coming.

Enjoy the rest. Enjoy trusting God. And if you can get past the brief and slight suffering, you'll find that it's actually a lot of fun waiting when you know God's going to come through for you. It's like watching a movie where you know the good guys are gonna win. It's fun. It's what you were made for.

So have fun trusting God. There is a time approaching! And He's going to come through!

Jericho

There's a terror in the city
A fright that's caught my eye
Behind their heavy walls
All my friends have gone to hide

They've heard that Judgement's coming
They've heard that God's alive
They've heard that He'll be coming soon
They hope that they'll survive

But Jericho, Oh Jericho
Your walls are paper thin
You think that all your fear and doubt
Will guard you from your sin

But Jericho, Oh Jericho
What foolishness you've known
I didn't come to hurt your heart
I came to save your soul
I came to save your soul

There's a prostitute inside my heart
She cries herself to sleep
But in the terror of the night
She finds a hope to keep

Her safe from all her own mistakes
And troubles of this world
Shes found a hope in Christ alone
There is a scarlet chord

Oh Jericho, My Jericho
There's safety from your sin
The walls of strength will soon come down
And leave you safe within

The hands of one who's strong enough
To save you from yourself
You'll find your soul's been satisfied
Your heart will now be well
Your heart will now be well

And if you come across the fear
We all have to some extent
Remember walls are nothing if
The problem lies within

To deal with fear, you'll need a love
That carries all your cares
And strips away the punishment
Of all your deadly errs

The love of Christ, Oh saving Grace!
Fortress Eternally,
Will guard my heart and mind
With joy and more than perfect peace

He heals the wounds, He pays the debts
I'm finally set free
It's not my burden anymore
In Love, He cares for me
In Love, He cares for me

God Has A Future For You

It can be hard to believe sometimes. Especially, when life is hard.  But God has a future for you.

It can be hard to believe sometimes. Especially when you're the one who blew it. But God has a future for you.

We think too small. We think like adults. Or to be more accurate... I think like an adult.

I spent the past week wrestling with feeling trapped. Trapped by my job, by my income, by my inability, by my past decisions and where they've led me.  Like, just kind of stuck.

But I'm remembering what God's showed me in the past when I've felt trapped...

I took a walk with God out into an open field. It was square miles of open land. I remember God whispering in my heart "Where do you want to go Jack? You can go any direction you want."

I wanted what I couldn't know in that moment. I wanted the adventure with God. So I threw it back to Him. "God, I don't know exactly what I want... I have big dreams but I don't know how to get to any of them... So I really just want to trust you to get me there."

The open field showed me the truth. It didn't really matter where I went or what I did. It only mattered who I was trusting in. God had me in an open field the whole time. There was wide open space and I could go any direction my heart wanted, but He was going to lead me.

Sitting in my chair today, I hear God whispering again. "Where do you want to go Jack? You can go wherever you want."

So today I'm choosing to put the weight of my life entirely on Jesus. Not on my right or wrong decisions. Not on my job or degree. Not on my talent or performance. True faith for the moment is dependence on God's goodness, not mine. And when we see that again, we'll stop feeling trapped. We'll see reality for what it is: Open fields and bright futures, all guided by amazing grace.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.

F-ear Plugs

The two most commonly repeated things said by Jesus in the New Testament are:

1. "Those who have ears to hear, let them hear" 15 times
2. "Don't be afraid" (or some variant of "don't be afraid") 21 times

We struggle with fear and we struggle with having the right ears to hear.

Our natural world is constantly talking to our natural senses. We touch physical things. We eat physical food. We see. We hear. There's natural cause and effect. We do, and therefore we receive. We work and therefore we earn. It's predictable to our understanding. It's feels safe to us only because it's familiar. We've been trained in it our entire lives.

But Truth is different than natural knowledge.You can't hear it with your natural mind. It requires a different kind of ear and it's unfamiliar to us until we're trained in it. When we hear the truth, it forces our minds to shift from the natural order of the world. The order of getting what we deserve for our actions. The order of "karma", you could say. The order of action and reaction.

When we hear the truth, it forces our mind to switch to the place of the new ear... The place that allows us to accept the truth of Christ. The truth that we are getting a love that we never deserved. That place is unfamiliar. Getting what we can't earn is altogether contrary to our earthly experience. It's new. And when we start living with the new ear, it's inevitable that the old ears will fight for control.

Fear is the tool of the old ear. The truth rings in the old ear. The truth is dissonance to our natural mind. When the old, "earning it", ear hears the Truth of God's unmerited love and forgiveness, it fights back with fear. Fear that you haven't done enough. Fear that your trust in Jesus will bring empty results. Fear that your mistakes are still bringing their penalty. Fear that the new ear is hearing lies. That God doesn't love you. That protection, healing, answered prayers, and real relationship are figments of our imagination.

The old ear fights our new ears with lies from our past. But if you have ears to hear, go ahead and hear the words of Jesus. Don't be afraid. And if you have ears to hear, hear it again. Don't be afraid. Take out the fear plugs and start hearing again.

Make God Say No

Force God to say no.

Why are we always the ones telling ourselves no? Our desires, our dreams... even the things we just want. Why do we shoot them down?

Who are you to say you can't have something? Are you God? Who told you that you couldn't have that thing you want? Was it God? Well, was it?

Nope. It never even made it to Him. You shot it down before it ever could. The lyrics to "Eye of the Tiger" hit me again:

"Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past. You must fight just to keep them alive"

Why are we fighting to lose our dreams? Why aren't we fighting for the crazy things?

Ask God for a million dollars. Go ahead. Ask Him. Do you want a million dollars? If you don't, don't ask Him. If you do, why not ask Him?

Maybe He wants you to have it. Maybe you're supposed to ask.

Take the roof off of your dreams and visions. Take the roof off of what you want. You think too small. You think God's like a man. He's not. Stop shooting down dreams before they happen.

Let God be dad. Let yourself be the little kid who asks for the crazy things. And keep asking. And keep asking. Make God say no.

Because chances are He's actually saying "YES!" and we just aren't asking. The things in our heart that we want...

And I know this because I do it... I get this happy thought about something that could be awesome and I immediately trash it to shreds with logic.

Well, hold on a second. God never said it had to be logical! Logic is not required for your desires.. He just wants childlike imagination and trust that God loves you more than this whole world.

So let God be God. Stop taking His place and rendering your own verdict. Ask Him and trust that He loves you... even enough to say Yes.

I believe we're supposed to start asking God again because He wants to say yes. But if we're too afraid of God saying no, we'll stop asking. We won't believe. So force Him to say no, by believing He'll say yes. Who knows, you might find He's fully given what you've wanted all along.