Originally published Wednesday, 12 October 2016.
What are you going after?
This is a question you do not ignore. Instead, it is one you put a pretty design around and then get tattooed on your hand.
It is that important.
You wear this question as if it is a badge of your dedication. You return to it often.
During my days in corporate America, I tried really hard. In my mind, I did really good. I responded to emails with lightning speed. I came up with proactive ideas before my boss even voiced word of the problem. I arrived not just with plans but complete SWOT analyses of the whole situation. I was always a step ahead.
After a long day at work, I'd run to release some steam. I'd run and think "I wonder if my boss sees all I am doing? I wonder if his boss sees too?" I assured myself, "Kelly, you'll go places. They'll uncover you and say, 'Wow, what a gem.'"
Between striving and running. I was exhausted.
I was going after the wrong thing: the desire to be the star.
I wouldn't have admitted this, but:
People were often a casualty in my race.
Problems were my ticket to a Kelly-solved-it phone call up the chain.
Work was a means to my end.
I didn't feel good unless I looked good.
A person dedicated to self-exalting ways
will run with skinned knees and deep discontentment.
What is your end? Not the one you try to convince yourself that you're after, but the one daily you live for by your actions? The one that makes you feel cruddy?
Are you after people knowing the great things you are doing? The feeling you are finally enough? The one-track-mind goal of being published? The phone call that ends your waiting time? The approval of that person that restores your sense of self? The success that erases your feelings of illegitimacy? The desire to be wanted by family members? The spotlight that shows millions accept you? The achievements that are all about you?
Make no mistake, my fellow seekers, we are all after something. Many of us just don't acknowledge it - because we are afraid to look at what our heart really wants. We are embarrassed; we don't really want God after all.
No shame here friends. I get off track all the time. I blow it!
Getting off track is not the major problem,
but remaining in denial of the problem - always is.
Where are you in denial?
Confront these questions (this means really consider them):
What is your heart's goal on the daily basis?
Is it about pleasing God or pleasing man?
Seeking self or glorifying God?
Self-protection or God-dedication?
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him. Col. 3:17
Draw a line. Draw, not a grey or fuzzy line -
we have enough of those -
but an I-will-do-it-all-in-the-name-of-Jesus line.
Draw a line that says, I will be resolute, determined and steadfast
in only going after the right thing.
In going after - God's thing.
This way, instead of allowances, excuses and rationalizing, you make progress.
Then, you and I claim a warrior-like mentality. It talks like this:
Speak to me, something that is not from him... I'm not listening.
Divert me with a call to selfish ambition... I'm shutting down.
Send me down a path of sin that will lead me astray...
Nope, I'm not going there, I want God.
Try to get me to make it about me...
I don't think so. It is all about Him.
Aim my heart at some target off the path of God...
Forget it. That's not contentment.
We've gotta stop doping around.
A person dedicated to do it God's way,
finds the upsurgence of God's heart
ready to explode from within her.
Drive emerges:
Your heart swerves left into discouragement,
but you jerk back and remember how he has always taken care of you.Your mind stalls -
you pray and uncover your next step to get moving again.Your doubts backfire -
but you fire back truth that kicks doubt out of the car.Your friends speak lousy words -
you nod your head and exhale them like exhaust.Your hard work proves fruitless -
you remember he's the one taking you somewhere.
You release demands and pressures. You fly free of the strings of the world. No one and nothing is tying you down. Like a hot air balloon, you are released to new heights.
You can see it all, from God's view.
You move like a person with laser-vision, dead-set on eternity. You fight hand-and-fist, tooth-and-nail, jackal-style, against the world that wants to wedge its way into your heart. You scream. You run. You stay near God. But, what you don't do is let it get its sticky fingers on you.
You won't have it.
And, when it does, when you feel icky because you went the wrong way, so you trash that empty wrapper, as quickly as you can, and say, "It's not that I have fallen that most concerns God, it is that I get up and get going with him once again."
And so you do. You just go where he wants to go, knowing that it is the ONLY and the BEST place to go.
A person dedicated to the Lord
is like a ship anchored to the core of the earth.
What comes against doesn't move h an inch.
He's unwavering, unbreakable and unshakable.
Prayer to be an Unshakable
God, help us. Where we are weak, make us strong. Where we are wavering, help us lay our anchor down. May we find strength through knowing you hold us. We no longer need to be held down by the world's claws. May we believe you are so believable we see your hand in our everything. May we so fall into your arms of grace, so we never feel the pangs of condemnation rip us apart. That is not you. And, truly, we want nothing that is not associated with you - it will only leave us empty. God, you are one that leaves us on full. Not once, but all the time. God, give us you. Increase our faith; make us into fighters who don't back down. May we know, strongly, you are what we need to run after. You are the answer to everything. You are the only way. Tie down our heart into you. Amen.
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