Hope

"Hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies"- Shawshank Redemption

         Hope. Such a simple word with not so simple meaning. Hope is what drives us during the rainy seasons. Its what makes the dark times bearable and the hard times beatable. Hope that with every dusk there will be a dawn. Hope that no matter the situation, no matter the pain, there is always a reason, always a lesson. Hope that even when we feel as if we cannot go on any longer and everything in life seems to have crumbled around us, we know that there is still a better tomorrow whether in this life or the next. As i have struggled and battled these past couple months I have held on to my hope. The hope that He is doing something wonderful. The hope that when this is all said and done I will look more like Him. The hope that when I finally see Him it will all be worth it. That's what I hope for. What is it you hope for? When you go outside and look up at the stars what do you find yourself wishing for? Maybe you are in a good place and you seem to have every thing you had ever hoped for and to you I say hold on to these moments, because if life has shown us anything it is that things change quickly and life never seems to stay perfect for long. So remember these times when life gets rough so you will have a tangible memory to hold on to. Maybe you are in a rough place like I am and life seems to be the exact opposite of what you had hoped for. To you I say hold on. Hold on to Him and the hope that He gives each and every one who calls on His name and know that no matter what happens you are loved and cared for; you are held close and treasured by the creator of the universe...what more could one hope for 

     

Timing is Everything

          30 years He waited. 30 years He lived as if He was just merely a man, a perfect man who loved and helped those around them but still just a man. For 30 years He followed the will of God for His life knowing that when the time was right God would release Him to do the job that He came here to do. 30 years of waiting and listening for 3 years of ministry that would change everything. Christ waited for God’s perfect timing because He knew that God’s timing is everything.

           

            The past couple of months I have struggled with this concept; struggled with not knowing what God had next or when He was going to place me back in Africa or if He would place me there at all and to be brutally honest I have struggled with the waiting period. I am a man of action. I have to be doing something; have to be moving forward and yet I found myself stagnant and stalled out wondering what  was going on. For many of us with the desire to do ministry the waiting period can be one of the hardest and most difficult because our hearts yearn to serve as well as be used in great and mighty ways and find ourselves being asked to sit still and wait. I have a preaching degree and have been out of college for 3 months now and have absolutely no idea what I am to do or what God’s will is for me in this moment. Two months ago I thought I had it all planned out but a lot can change in two months and everything that I had planned seems to have fallen apart right in front of me. So I sat there asking God why? Why did He break the plans that Him and I had discussed? Why did He allow everything to fall? These plans were the one’s that we had come to accept and were moving forward with. Today while mowing my yard I got my answer to those questions. I was again asking God “why did the plans that we discussed and chose fall threw?” to which he replied “we never discussed or chose any plans…You discussed and chose those plans. I never agreed to those for those were not my plans.” It would seem that I had become so impatient waiting on God that I jumped at the first opportunity for ministry, a ministry that would send me back to Africa and in doing so I set myself up for heartbreak and failure. I was so afraid that if I sat waiting I would miss out on God’s call for my life which in all reality shows a lack of trust and faith. Maybe you can relate with this. Maybe there is a dream that God has placed in your heart and you find yourself in a holding pattern questioning if that dream was even from God in the first place. You find yourself asking where you went wrong or what you may have missed. Did you miss the open door? But to those questions God is answering one word. Wait. Wait on Him trusting that His timing is perfect. The dreams that He placed in your heart were placed there for a reason and if they are truly from Him then the realization of those dreams will fully depend on Him. Is He not God? Can He not work out everything to bring about the fulfillment of His purpose and will? Will He not make the open door clear to you when the time is right?  Did He not show you the open door in the past; The doors that got you where you are today? If He was faithful to place you where He wanted you in the past rest assured that He will do so in the future. Jesus had to wait 30 years before He began His ministry, a ministry that would only last 3 years but look what happened in those years. Whether you are young or old know that when God calls you to something or places a dream in your heart He will make the way so that you see the fulfillment of that calling or dream. Jesus gave God 30 years of just living and waiting and God gave Him 3 years that rocked this world and changed everything. How much time will you give God? How long will you wait? I would be willing to bet that if we could see the full plan God has for us and what will come of our waiting we would be more than willing to wait, but where is the faith in that? God’s timing was perfect in the life of Christ and it is still perfect in our lives. So if you find yourself in the waiting period just be still and wait knowing He is God and that His timing is everything.

Change of Plans

          In life things do not always go as planned, in fact it is a rarity when they do. Many times we will make plans for our future; what job we will have, who we will marry, how many kids, only to have those plans changed if not crushed outright by the circumstances of life. It is during those times in life where we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can either get mad at God, blame Him for ruining our plans, and walk away because who wants to serve a God who changes His mind all time or we can trust that He knows what He is doing, that he has a plan, and that He truly is who He says He is. You see I write this now because I have come to this crossroads and yet again I am left here scratching my head wondering what happened? How did everything change so quickly and why did it change in the first place? The plans changed so rapidly that it took my breath away...literally. The change was a blind side hit and as I sit here I am left with the pain that comes with that kind of destructive fallout. Anger for allowing myself to be vulnerable enough to be hurt, confused as to why, when everything seemed to be going so, did it blow up, but most of all hurt...hurt because I thought I had finally found the one...hurt because I had finally gotten the strength to put my heart out there 100% only to have it smashed.
          So where do I go from here? I find myself at the crossroads with one part of me wanting to be angry at God  and the other knowing that God is bigger than my circumstances and that He is working everything out for His glory. I have been here before and I have taken the angry route and although it did bring me to peace in God eventually it was a very long road to do so. I know that my God is bigger than my problems and that He sees my pain. I know that He loves me and that He will not forsake those that He loves and I know that ultimately His plan will come to fulfillment if only I will trust Him. Even when I am left asking why I know that He is still God and he is still worthy of my praise. I will not allow this change of plans to break me nor will I allow it to destroy all that He built last year. Even when the plans of life change He remains the same.