Make a Difference

I read a newspaper article online this week about a woman named Chastity in the Daytona Beach area that has been missing for three months. She has a history of drug addiction and had been working on Ridgewood Avenue as a prostitute to support her habit. She is only 27 years old and the police don't expect to find her alive.

This story is repeated in newspapers throughout the country on a regular basis, but what makes this one different for me is that I remember her as a sweet, innocent 15 year old girl that sat in my health class at Mainland High School. I remember how she would come into class with a smile on her face and sit in the 2nd row. She was a good student and I enjoyed having her in class. She didn't seem to have any major life problems-none that she brought into the school with her anyway-and seemed well-adjusted. I don't know that anything was going on while she was in my class for those 18 weeks, but at some point she made some decisions that sent her spiralling down a destructive pathway for her life.

Reading this story has made me think about the people that we interact with and the opportunities that we might have to influence them. I can honestly admit that I didn't give the attention that was needed to each student that walked through my doors-either in the classroom or the church. I didn't always consider where they were coming from or what outside influences would steer them down the roads of life. Even now we tend to keep moving along in our schedules and don't see the people around us that we might have a chance to impact-especially when we are working with youth.

I'm not egotistical enough to say that an investment from me in this woman's life would have saved her from these decisions. It does make me realize what God-given opportunities are in front of me on a daily basis and that I don't want to take them for granted. I don't want to assume that a chance to impact a life today will be there tomorrow.

If we all share that same focus as Christ-followers and leaders we might stand a better chance of saving someone like Chastity.

What Do You Want?

In Numbers 11, I read where the Israelites were unhappy with the manna that God was providing each day. They started to complain and ask Moses to beg God to give them something else. Their rejection of manna as their sustenance was a sign of their disobedience to God and their dissatisfaction with His plan.

I see where the same thing happens to us. We pray and ask God for solutions to dilemmas in our life and then we are unhappy with the answers that He provides. We beg Him to make our job situation better and when that job ends unexpectedly we start to doubt His plan. We find ourselves praying earnestly for healing from cancer and when He chooses to end that person's life here on earth we are filled with disappointment and anger. We plead with God to change people's hearts and find that He wants to change us first.

God's answer to our prayers isn't necessarily going to be what we expect. In fact, from personal experience I can tell you that it most often is not. The question that we have to ask ourselves then is whether we are praying for God to work in our lives through His incredible grace and omniscience or whether we just want Him to give us what we want. Our answer to that question reveals whether we are engaging in a maturing, faithful relationship with a God who provides or if we are seeking a magic genie who will grant us wishes to satisfy short-sighted visions of need.

Where Are You Going?

In the book of Numbers, chapter 9, we see that when the tabernacle is set up, a cloud covers it that is the presence of God. When the cloud stays over the tent the Israelites are supposed to stay put. When the cloud moves off of the tent they are to pick up and follow where God leads them. According to Scripture that period of waiting was sometimes a few days and others over a year. The key was that the Israelites understood the importance of waiting for God's direction before they moved on.

As I read this passage this morning I wondered about our own obedience to God's leading in His church and in our personal lives. I think that sometimes we get impatient and try to move ahead before God really wants us to go. This leads to a lack of preparation and prayer on our part as we try to force-feed our own timetable on God's plans. I also believe that the converse is true and that we often don't move when God tells us to. We sit back and analyze and strategize for too long and miss out on the divine appointments that God has for us due to our lack of obedient faith.

If we could develop faith in what God is doing and a sensitivity to His Spirit I would wager that we would be ready to go when He calls us to move. Imagine the difference we would see in His church and our impact on those around us if we followed that closely.

Search My Heart

I have just returned from another trip to the American Indian Christian Mission in Show Low, Arizona. My mind and heart are still processing all of the experiences of last week and what God is continuing to teach me from our team's time there. I don't have all the answers yet, but I am asking God to search my heart and soul and reveal to me what I need to learn and apply here.

Feeling Tense

Our lives are filled with tension and not just the angry, "I didn't get my way so I'm going to take my ball and go home" kind of tension either. It's a conflict that we have due to the gaps in lives. It's a realization that there is a distance between the reality of our relationships, expectations, finances and spirituality and where they could, would or should be.

It's the gap between where we are right now and where we thought we would be. A distance between the needs of your spouse and what you are providing to meet them. A chasm in the expectations of your boss and what you feel you are capable of doing. A gap in where your finances are currently and the anxiety you feel in trying to make it better. Tension you try to manage as the parent you want to be so that your children will grow into all that God has planned for them. The space between where your career is right now and what you dreamed it would be.

At the core of all of this conflict is the tension within our spirit. This is the pull that we feel from the Holy Spirit and the distance that we can see (if our eyes are opened) from who we are and who God truly wants us to be.

Managing all this tension in our life can be exhausting.

If we would focus on the one gap that matters most-allowing our spirit to be transformed by the Holy Spirit on a daily basis-I would wager that the other tensions in life would start to fall in line at the same time.

Uncommon

I am reading in Leviticus this morning and God is explaining through Moses the different sacrifices and how to perform them the right way. In Chapter 10, Moses says to Aaron in verses 10-11, "You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the Lord has given them through Moses."

It was the responsibility of the priest to make this determination in his own life and then to communicate that to the rest of the people. With the gift of the Holy Spirit through baptism in the New Testament, we are all now charged with the same duties as priests for the King. We are to push away from what is common and unclean and instead live a life that is marked by uncommon holiness. It is a spiritual separation from the world by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, and a physical separation in attitude, thoughts, words and actions that reveals to the rest of the world who our true Master is. It then falls on all believers to teach that truth from God as it is revealed by our earnest searching for what is right.

Don't settle for commonplace. That isn't the lifestyle that Christ paid the price for us to have.

Take Action

We pray frequently asking God to do big things in our lives. We want Him to heal our marriages, strengthen our relationships, fix our children, make our finances better, increase our faith and reveal His will for our lives. There is nothing wrong with asking God for these things. In fact, He tells us that that He wants to bless His children and reveal His great glory through His love for all of us. Psalm 37:4 tells us that if we will delight in Him that He will give us the desires of our hearts.

I think the step that we often miss in seeing God's answer to our prayers is the step of obedience. We need to realize that God is the only one that can provide the solutions to our dilemmas, but we also need to be ready to take action. If you are asking God to protect your child and set them on the right path for their life, you need to be investing in them and speaking those truths to them as you pray. If you want God to heal your marriage then you need to be communicating with your spouse and talking about God's plan for you both. When you seek God's help in your finances, you need to set a budget and be faithfully tithing. If you want people to know who Christ is, you have to be willing to share that truth with them.

God can certainly work in spite of us (He does it all the time), but it is when we act in alignment with what we are asking from Him that He provides His greatest answers and we see our faith increase the most.