Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Thursday 10/07/2010)

I Am Where I Belong…

John 11:5-15 (Amplified Bible)

⁵Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [They were His dear friends, and He held them in loving esteem.] ⁶Therefore [even] when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He still stayed two days longer in the same place where He was. ⁷Then after that interval He said to His disciples, Let us go back again to Judea. ⁸The disciples said to Him, Rabbi, the Jews only recently were intending and trying to stone You, and are You [thinking of] going back there again? ⁹Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? Anyone who walks about in the daytime does not stumble, because he sees [by] the light of this world. ¹⁰But if anyone walks about in the night, he does stumble, because there is no light in him [the light is lacking to him]. ¹¹He said these things, and then added, Our friend Lazarus is at rest and sleeping; but I am going there that I may awaken him out of his sleep. ¹²The disciples answered, Lord, if he is sleeping, he will recover. ¹³However, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He referred to falling into a refreshing and natural sleep. ¹⁴So then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵And for your sake I am glad that I was not there; it will help you to believe (to trust and rely on Me). However, let us go to him.

When I am asked how I came to reside in Virginia, I use to immediately say I came here kicking and screaming. Before I was forced to relocate to Virginia, I lived in Paradise, I lived in Hawaii and I had been living there for the past eight years. I had absolutely no desire at that time to move. I had one class to complete my Masters in Business Administration and although there were many elements of my life that were miserable, I would have surely put up with them to stay in Paradise and finish my education and take a job offer. But that is not how things worked out. I had to move, and my degree completion was placed on hold. I came here to illness, confusion and ultimately the finality to a marriage that had been hanging on only by a shred of a thread for years. Everything I assumed my life would be five years ago, changed for what I assumed was the worst, upon my arrival here. All I can say now is BUT GOD! I had not earthly idea what God was doing or if He was even present most days for all that was going wrong on a weekly, and sometimes daily basis. I thought for sure I had done something majorly wrong to warrant the punishment I thought I was receiving. I had no idea what God was doing. I had no idea that He sent me to Virginia to support, undergird, assist, grow, heal, and get rid of, obtain, regress, progress, get healed, overcome, learn, teach and become blessed in ways I did not even know I needed to be.

We often map out our lives and we think we should have things well in hand and we have painted an exquisite picture of what our life should be and what it should look like and when something happens and that picture becomes distorted or becomes something other than what we thought it should be, we think for sure we are out of God’s will or we are not where we are supposed to be in our journey. All too often we miss the fact that things happen so that God can get the Glory out of a situation and that He can open us up to things we never even phantom could occur to us, through us and for us. We want to control life and have everything organized in a neat little box. For many of us we have even rationalized that we should put up with certain discomforts and mistreatments to obtain certain other things that we have rationalized are important. But God has this funny way of thinking and doing things, surprising enough it is never what we think, it is always so much different because He thinks outside of time and space, into eternity and outside of human reasoning to supernatural and spiritual context. If we would stop trying to pack ourselves and God’s intentions and purpose for us into a neat little package, we would be better off. If we could come to a place of understanding that God wants to get the Glory out of us and out of our lives and the way He does that is often vastly different than the way would do it by choosing just to live a mediocre existence where we settle for what we believe is best for us, or in some case not even best but just fair to midline.

The journey we are on, if our hand is in God’s hand and our trust is in God, is set and on course. It is moving the way it is supposed to. We are on a course they may look ridiculous and even feel totally not right, but if we can hold on and keep moving as God leads and directs He will get us where He needs us to be and it will be so that He can show Himself mighty, strong and that He has given unto us ALL things that pertains to life and not just any life, but life abundantly, where His glory is shown forth! So do not doubt, where you are and where you are going even if you are not sure where that is. Know that God is in the midst and He is going to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think!