What keeps me going today: that there is more in store for me than what is happening right this minute
What moves my feet today: urgency
I could do without: anxiety and being exhausted
I just want to look in the mirror, ball up my fists, raise them to face level, and shake them in a threatening way. I want to lean into my own ear and scream at the top of my lungs. “What are you doing?!?!?” Why? Well, it is complicated as usual. Ya know what? No it isn’t.
Here I am, nearly 30 years old. I am working my tail off to just barely make it through ‘til the next week’s check. I know that I’m not alone. A close friend is in the same spot with 2 little’ens and one on the way. Most of the people I work with are actually in the same spot, of course, they are working for a second income, not a primary income. So I am taking on an astronomical amount of hours just to make ends meet while I am basically “whoring” myself out to whoever needs some poor sap to earn some bucks. Yup, all in the name of paying the car insurance or storage building rental or hell, even gas in the Gas Saver.
So what is the cause of all of this? Is it that I’m horrible with money? Nah. Is it that I am cursed and will have the same fortune as the one’s who have gone before me…working at a 21 year old man’s pace until I’m in my fifties and nothing to show for it except worry and anxiety and accounts in collections or a car repossesed? Nah. The answer? The only solution? How much time did I spend this week praying about direction for the future? Hmmm?!? How much time did I search the scriptures to find how God wants me to lead my family? Hmmm?!? Did I lay my selfish desires down as crap-filled stinky and bloody rags as they are and pick up the newness in Christ that is promised…the empowerment to do as your are called?
I read my brother’s and MB’s blogs yesterday morning. I already had this blog entry planned out in my head by the time I got to work yesterday, but I think that it’s unique how God will speak pretty much the same thing to several people. Here is the thing. God speaks to us whether we are listening or not. I don’t think He is screaming and yelling for us to hear. Instead, we have to get quiet…in our “closet.” We need to have that time designated for building the relationship with our Father. We have to purposefully let God speak to our hearts. I don’t think that is always through signs. That is how deception happens. How can you go wrong with the only true thing we seem to have…the Word of God. Pick it up, dust it off, and get to reading and applying it to your life. And read it in a contextual way. Don’t just read a passage like “I know the plans I have for you…plans of hope, future and prosperity.” Sure, God wants for us to be successful, but is that success in a worldly way when we aren’t supposed to be of the world…especially when the next verses say that we will find God when we seek him with all of our hearts? If He is what drives us, then our hearts’ desires change to what God knows is important. So, then, He will give us the desires of our hearts-His heart. Maybe a lifetime supply of cash-o-la is not God’s best.
God is a very jealous God. He doesn’t want much, just our everything. I think that the word is true when it speaks of the fact that you can’t worship two masters…God and mammon (money). You must…you will choose one or the other…
At the end of the day, if you have spent all of your energy trying to make ends meet and have neglected to spend time with our only Source…our Provider and Sustainer, then I think that we will struggle. And maybe our struggle won’t be over what is in or what isn’t in the bank account, but maybe it will rear it’s face in our marriage, our kid’s behavior, our interactions @ work, or overall emotional state… Oh, and you might as well expect distance from God…which by the way is sin.
Truth plain and simple…hard to swallow, but it just is what it is.
Prodigal Thinker 