Man oh man..
.. the next person to ask me where I see myself in a year is gonna receive a swift slap to the face.
I don’t know..okay. I’m trying to figure it out, but I don’t know. So, if you could stop asking.. that would be fantastic.
I can deal with work pressure. I can handle financial pressure. I can take relationship confusion. I can accept failure. But when all of those things come crashing into one point.. apparently, I’ve shown this last week that I am NOT capable of remaining calm and in control.
But maybe that’s the idea.. I’m not supposed to be in control. When I’ve got things under my control, then I’m walking blindly because.. I don’t know the future. I don’t know who’s struggling, and needs to be encouraged. I don’t know where my finances are going to come from… maybe that’s why I don’t know. I’ve held onto my control so tightly it just slipped right out of my hand.
I started writing this 5 days ago. I’ve read and re-read the first three parts over and over with no idea what to do with it. It’s taken 5 days to figure out the idea. See in order for me to walk forward I can’t continue to fixate on what’s around me… I have to focus on what’s ahead… and on who’s controlling it.
And to focus on what’s ahead, I have to remember why I’m doing what I’m doing it.
I’m doing it because.. they need it. I fear that in the business of ministry we’ve forgotten to look at the people we’re ministering to. We’ve stopped looking in their eyes and being concerned with their hearts. We’ve forgotten that every person has a story and every person either is or has the potential to be a God story.
I would be remiss in my faith to not make every effort to make sure everyone knows. To make the knowledge available to EVERYONE. Whether or not someone utlimately chooses to follow Christ is between them and the father, but if they can’t choose because they don’t know … then that’s on me.
As my control of situations is painfully being stripped away… as my heart continues to ache… as my failures begin to kill my pride…I’m beginning to remember that I’m not doing it for a group. I’m doing it for individuals. Individual people with individual needs and individual pain. As much as it hurts for me to lose things I hold so dear, my suffering is “nothing compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ for who’s sake I have lost all things.”
