You can't stand still... if you're not moving forward, then you're moving backwards. Heard that one before? Yeah, me too. But until I started reading Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, I had never really thought about that statement in the context of my prayer life. God is really using this book to wreck my world a little bit and shake up my life, my goals, what I'm praying for, how I pray...you get the point. Don't you love it when He really hits the point home through your friends and church too! Every sermon seems to call out the same areas in my life that need to change, and my friends who will not hesitate to hold me accountable validate it too (in fact, a good deal of this post comes from a conversation with a friend yesterday.) I'm sorta at the stage where I'm saying, yes God, I've definitely been in a holding pattern, but what's next? I'm reading Furtick's book to help me figure out the road to that answer. You'll have to read the book to get ALL the great nuggets of wisdom, but the general heart of it is - God has such an amazing purpose for each of us, greater than we can imagine and He wants to do the impossible through us...in fact, Joshua asked that the sun would stand still to give the Israelites more time to win a battle and his prayer of faith was answered. The reason we (or I) are not realizing and living in the awesome potential God has for us is because we aren't trusting Him to do what He's promised...and additionally, we (again, or I) are not even asking Him what that is! We are content with the humdrum of our daily lives...or are we? I think I mistake contentment for complacency, because when I think about these things, I am certainly not content. Do I really want to just "get by"? Do you? I know I've shared the verse in John 10 before where Jesus tells us He came to earth so that we may have life and have it in abundance. I'm realizing I need to surrender my day to God each and every morning and remind myself of this truth, or else I honestly will be just asking to get through another day.
Our sermon on Sunday night was on distractions. We focused on the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. It's pretty familiar probably, even to those who aren't Christians, but I encourage you to read it. Our pastor Khori spoke about how just a tiny distraction can completely throw our life off course and in some instances do major damage. We are like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where God gives us free reign of more than we could ever want - there's a banquet table of amazing things he has set out for us. But, we chose the one tiny apple that He said we can't have, and forgo the real gifts and true purpose He has for us. For me, it was easy to pinpoint distractions in my life right away - competition, my need for acceptance and love, caring too much about what people think of me, pride...the list goes on. What was more difficult to determine was - what am I actually missing because of these distractions? What does God have on my banquet table that I'm choosing to forgo? I think it's so important to determine this, or the distractions will surely overwhelm us. It's a lot easier to walk forward if we know what we are walking toward.
So that's where my prayers are focused now. What is it that you have for me God? I have some ideas. Furtick says that in our prayers, we have to "walk in faith, not stand in hope." We are told to pray in faith and approach God's throne with boldness, but is it really a prayer of faith, if we don't moveforward? Furtick also says "Every aspiration you have in prayer needs an accompanying action. Otherwise, you're not really praying. You're just pontificating. You do the natural. Trust God for the super."
So what are you waiting for? Put your shoes on with me and start walking!
