Ever have those times when God gives you glimpses of the calling, destiny, purpose, and/or future set before you? Maybe some of you live there - and that's what makes you the incredible visionaries that you are. Maybe you've never experienced that. I don't live there. Usually, I live with the sensation, or the underlying instinct that I'm either going the right way, or slightly off-track, or majorly off track - but just generally plodding along, "following my nose" to the general destination that I sense God is taking me to. However, occasionally I get flashes of "this" or pictures of "that" - sensations of possibility, glimpses into the "could be's," but also the "will be's". And to be honest, it kind of takes my breath away.
When I was a new Christian, I asked God to help me see the reasons why things happened, and see the connections behind things, to see how certain circumstances affected me and helped me grow. I asked Him that because I knew that if I didn't see the growth, then I would get discouraged and wouldn't last out the journey. A few years ago, I was in the middle of working out a few, ahem, personality quirks, "flesh" or "old man" reactions - and I was so overcome with what seemed like the impossibility of getting over my sinful nature. But then, every so often for a few weeks, God would give me a sudden glimpse, just like a flash of sunlight off a passing car, of the woman of God that I would become. It was extremely encouraging, because I didn't have to focus on what I was, or what I wasn't, or what I was struggling with; I could focus on the promise of God, that "he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6).
One of the burning desires of my heart is to persevere, to live a life of ministry and not burn out. I don't want to be a statistic. I feel the call to minister, have felt it since I was sixteen (at least), and I want to live it out "until Jesus comes, or takes me home." And I think one of the ways - at least for me - to prevent burnout and to endure, is to focus on the promises of God in my life. I could focus on the negative in my life - all the things that I wish were happening, in and out of ministry, and are not (and to be honest, I live there far more frequently than I should) - but instead I need to choose to focus on what God said will be. He's said some pretty big things to me. And I need to look for what God is saying is and will, not what isn't and hasn't. I need to look for the promises. I read a colleague's blog recently and I was pretty inspired. In it he talks about changing his mindset from seeing his church grow big in the next 20 years to seeing his city changed and impacted in the next 20 years. Talk about vision! Man, my heart leaps in me when I read that. Something in me does a fist-pump in the air and yells, yes!
The Bible talks about how "where there is no vision, the people perish" (Prov 29:18). The ESV says, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint." There have been many times when I have felt like I was living less than the "abundant life" that Jesus promised, and I am sure that it's had to do with feeling directionless. (God knows, I need direction! I'm SO a roadmap kind of person!). I want to live in the promises of God. I'm not saying that I want to live in the clouds and la-la land and not have to deal with anything. I'm talking, living with "every spiritual blessing" that Ephesians refers to, as reality in my life. Living with the "God says it, so it is" mindset, and the "God showed me, so this is where I'm heading" mindset. The "yes and amen" mindset, the "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength" mindset.
I don't want to live just "plodding along". I want to live in a place of prophetic vision, for my life, for the ministry that God has called me to; for myself and on behalf of and for the benefit of the people I minister to.
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