I am reading a wonderful book called Be All You Can Be by John Maxwell. He tells the story in the bible about how demons had been attacking and terrorizing people in this town for years. Jesus comes and casts the demons into a herd of pigs and the pigs (now possessed) run straight into the sea and drown. The people are mad and complaining because they just lost their pigs. In case you missed it- wild, naked crazy demon possessed men are attacking people in this community. But the people are mad because their pigs drowned. REALLY. They wanted to get rid of these crazy possessed men, but they did not wanna lose their pigs. WHAT ARE YOUR PIGS?
John Maxwell then says this:
"They remind me of people who want God to solve their problems without it costing them anything. They want all the solutions, but they want them for nothing." He continues on " We dont want to be confronted with changes or problems. Even when God himself brings them into our lives, we want to escape them. We want DELIVERANCE without DISTURBANCE. We want benefits without the bills. We want SUCCESS without SACRIFICE. But it just does not happen that way. We cannot afford to drift into a lifestyle that places repose above results. We must welcome the changes that God's spirit brings and accept them on HIS conditions and not ours"
Our culture has become so consumed with instant gratification. We want what we want and want it now. Unfortunately thats just not how it works in reality. Real life is hard and takes lots of work to make it good, and even more work to keep it good.
Maxwell says " But you are the only one who can make yourself happy. No one can bring happiness to someone who is miserable. When we begin to take responsibility for our own personal happiness and realize that its through growth and growing experiences, even though they may be painful, that we become happy, then we're really going to achieve."
Ok so this happiness quote seems to not really fit in, but here is my logic and the crazy journey I have been on over my lifetime.
Over really the past 10 years God has used some very difficult situations and circumstances to shape and steer me exactly where he wanted me to go. At times I wanted to quit and give up, but that still silence voice gave me strength to hold on tight admits the storm. To GROW where I was planted and learn and listen and GROW some more.
I have blogged several times on my "pull up your big girl panties" journey this summer and here is where all the puzzle pieces in my life are beginning to make sense.
The summer before I got married I for the first time really learned to depend on Christ and Christ alone. At the core of my being I was able to "taste and see that the Lord is good." That summer I was for the first time satisfied with Christ and him alone. Michael was in Africa on a mission trip and I was living alone in augusta with no family. ALONE- if you know me well you know I DONT LIKE LIVING ALONE. But I was forced to rely on Christ for my source of security and strength.This changed me because I no longer relied on Michael, or my family, or my friends to give me strength and security. Those are all really good things. Michael is wonderful. I have an amazing family and great friends but they arent perfect and they will fail me. I finally saw that Christ's love is perfect and that He is enough. He is all I need. He loves me just the way I am. He loves me so much in fact that he doesnt want to leave me where I am at, but make me more like himself.
So my core strength transitioned from relying on myself to relying on Christ that summer. And praise the Lord, He constantly has to remind me that He is Lord and I must rely on him ALONE.
This is what I consider my conviction. Unshakeable, Unchangeable my God is Lord and in Him ALONE I will find my strength to be all that He wants me to be.
Over the past few years the conviction has strengthened through biblical teaching, positive relationships and most of all challenges that have forced me to stretch and grow. And although my head knowledge was increasing, I was not seeing much actual CHANGE in my life. I was still consumed with the excuses of why me, why is life hard, why this why that...blah blah blah...I was the QUEEN of excuses.
This past summer I would complain and give every excuse in the book and then come to the conclusion...Michael, I need to just pull up my big girl panties and do something about it dont it?
....part II in next post
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