Mountains part 5
I'm not saying you'll never come upon any obstacles in your life. Life is messy. It rarely goes as we plan. What's that old saying, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plan." Now I don't think its as bad as all that. And I don't think you should go through life WITHOUT a plan, either. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail, right? But what I'm saying is: We need to be flexible. We need to be able to see the bigger picture. Or, at the very least, trust that there IS a bigger picture. Trust that there IS a plan, and that its God's (LOVE'S) plan. And that it won't fail. Love never fails. But love doesn't always look the way we want it to. There's a song that says, "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." Because sometimes what we THINK we want is not what's best for us. Sometimes our greatest disappointments are really the breeding ground for our biggest triumphs. A setback is really a setup for a comeback. So when you inevitably DO come upon obstacles in the road--and I made a Guerrilla Gospel video about this today too--you need to walk accordingly. You need to know that everything is under Jesus' feet. And that our feet ARE His feet. That's why the mountains (that we make out of molehills) have been brought low. And the valleys (that we sink into and think we'll never be able to get out of) have been brought high. Its a straight and narrow path. No matter what it "looks" like. Which, by the way, is why we walk by faith and not by sight. There's a voice behind us on that highway of holiness that tells us, "This is the way, walk in it" when we get mixed up and stray from that path. And there's a HUGE difference between "walking it out" and "walking in it." When you try to walk something out in your own power you frustrate the grace of God (and I don't mean that God gets frustrated. I think He is patience personified. I mean your traditions, or your works and labor, make the Word of God of no effect). When you look for love in all the wrong places, instead of looking inside, you miss out on it. When you try to earn something you've already got, you end up robbing yourself. Obstacles are not something to struggle with. Obstacles are not something you have to figure out how to overcome. I guess, for the most part, I'm ok with saying, "God gives you mountains so you can learn how to climb." When Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, God put them through the paces in order to purify and perfect them. But I also think we make things a lot harder on ourselves (and each other) than we need to. Because not everything has to be a battle. And not every "battle" needs to be fought. The ONLY battle that HAS to be fought on this side of the cross is the good fight of faith. Which is simply laying hold of eternal life. Receiving the gift we've been given, and experiencing that gift by sharing it. Receiving it and releasing it. Receiving it BY releasing it. What am I trying to say to end this Rant series? That we have it a lot better than we seem to think. That we don't have to be destroyed by every little thing that comes out. We can see it under our feet, and we can walk accordingly!