Saturday, July 4, 2015

Draft Mode

What keeps a person from being truly effective?


If there be any searching, wondering, questioning even doubting about the point of the life one has been given...that in itself ultimately keeps one from being truly effective. But the question began with a wondering a searching and yet it ends in being only more ineffective. So what is the answer?

To find an answer we must become acquainted with the root:

What are the causes of becoming stuck in life?

Many are the causes: becoming overwhelmed with life, having questions, doubts, let downs, even in the midst of great success one can become stuck. So you need not have anything in particular to be left questioning and feeling nothing.

Ask yourself where does it unravel for you, what are the very questions that leave you stuck and as King Solomon so best said feeling, "meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless a chasing after the wind".

Once you know the question you are stuck on or the answer perhaps then you can move forward.

What can you do about it, there may not be a specialist, there need not be, perhaps you were placed on this earth to be the answer or shed some light in a dark place.

If you are still stuck on the above statement, who says that you cannot be a source for an answer...a lot of times we search because there is no good answer observed in our lives and we are in a desert place longing for one...so this is where action requires courage. Boldness to stand in strength when we are all but worn down, to be the answer we desire.

When we draft our lives- in our minds, on paper, daydreaming per say, we are not accomplishing what God has called us to- obedience is action and living out our faith. Look at this scripture written from an elder to a noble woman of faith:




2 John 1 New International Version (NIV)
The elder,
To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.
It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we[a] have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. 11 Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.
12 I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
13 The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings.
 
Matthew Henry's commentary:
And we may further see that it is joyful to good old ministers, and accordingly to other good old disciples, to see a hopeful rising generation, who may serve God and support religion in the world when they are dead and gone. We see here also the rule of true walking: the commandment of the Father. Then is our walk true, our converse right, when it is managed by the word of God.
 
I am not saying we shouldn't be allowed times of hurt, questioning and wanting more of an answer as to why we are alive...I think we must long and question in order to be motivated argue with the sense of entitlement to get answers and turn instead to give answers. I think the questions are where great things begin, the questions like a landslide give way to faith that then quantifies action through obedience to Christ and His mission, His reason for being in and through you.
 
The story above is a beautiful picture of a woman who some sources speculate was a widowed woman since she is noted as the head of the home. Her children are following Lord. Wait, back up, it didn't say "all her children" in verse four it said "some of her children". Wow, a faithful noble woman who has experienced possible tragic loss of proportions now doing the work of mothering alone- commended by a leader of faith for "some" success. Isn't that interesting. We do not and cannot, as mom's and dad's, control the choices of our family members, but we can obey and give a very strong start and possibility for success in their lives.
 
Love, it is a tangible and meaningful picture acknowledged through our faithful obedience, even if what we produce is not a perfect score.
 
How much do you bet that mom does not credit herself for her "some" but her heart is on the others maybe only one that is not following the Lord. Don't you know her heart, I'd gather to wage this mom does not credit any success to herself as she considers the "some" that are not walking rightly. But God doesn't demand perfection, and this mom may be at the place some of us are today- she may have been full of questions and wondering why she had to lose her husband, why she had to walk this faith walk alone, why she had to endure who know what ridicule in her city as a widower- maybe even some mocking her, maybe her prodigal had a bad name in town even (my heart hurts over her questions).  I love that Jesus sends her a letter through this elder, a leader, telling her she has done well, telling her she is noble.
 
Encouragement, if you have not heard today from anyone- this may be your divine appointment to hear that God sees the good you are doing. Be encouraged, He does not demand perfection for He sees the heart.
 
The elder tells this woman to continue on in love, not to get ahead of God and therefore get deceived in the process. Some teachers tell a good story but if their words have no Christ in them we are to be aware, taking them in may be taking down our own walk. There is not a bigger or better thing than Christ. As much as our fast paced, gimmick based world wants us to believe the answer is here or there...no, the answer is in continuing in the faith even when it doesn't seem it is heading anywhere.
 
Faith is painted on human hearts and overflows. If you are stuck in draft mode as I have been, the issue may be questions but that is not where we are to remain. We are to live out loud in our relationships, even the broken ones, we are to move in our God given strengths and share. We are as Matthew Henry's commentary states, to allow God to manage our lives through His word.
 
Can't you appreciate how the elder speaks to the woman in writing but then closes saying, "he has more to say to her but he wants to see her face to face, so that their joy may be complete". There is something to living out "in person" with others and leading out loud from the depths of questions, that is where Christ moves and we stay in step with Him. I encourage you to find someone face to face and encourage them in Christ or continue this walk in faith allowing God to manage your life through the Word, to remove all of the questions and turn them into service for others.
 
 
 
Where there were questions many times in the Word Jesus answered with more questions, I encourage you to check out the blog post below and ask yourself these questions Jesus asked.