You paying attention?

I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth. Stay with God! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with God. (Psalm 27:14)

Whenever things are repeated in scripture, it is so we will know God wants us to pay particular attention to the details he is expressing. Just some stats here: 

    35 times we are told to draw near to God

    32 times we are told to be watchful because there might be something we'd miss or be duped by

    25 times we are told not to quit, but to keep pressing forward

If God cares enough to remind us of the importance of drawing near, being ever vigilant in our attentiveness, and not to get tired of pressing on, we had better pay attention!

God's goodness will be seen, even when we don't see any evidence of it right now. There can be all manner of turmoil or chaos around us, but God tells us to take heart - he will reveal his goodness all around us if we are watchful and never stop seeking him. Don't quit - stay with God. How do we develop such 'staying power'? I think it is a gradual thing - we put one foot in front of the other and keep on doing it until we develop some sort of 'stick with it' focus. Faith doesn't have to be complicated - it just needs to be consistent!

Draw near, pay attention, and never quit. These are three very important instructions to us, repeated time and time again. Draw near - get 'tight' with Jesus. Don't be afraid of being near his holiness because his holiness is now your holiness! Don't be concerned he will 'find fault' with you for one thing or another, because even if he points out something that needs a bit of his attention, he gives us the grace and wherewithal to deal with it. Pay attention to him - not just one day a week at church service, but each and every day. He is found in the small things as much as he is in the big ones!

Never quit - stick with it. You may not feel like your faith is developing at the pace you thought it would, but if you are continuing to put one foot in front of the other with Christ at the center of your life, you are moving in the direction that will create a deep and lasting faith within you. Quitters have lost hope, but God even gives us the hope to continue on even in the midst of things that might try to derail us from moving forward. Just sayin!

We all need a purpose

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:6-7)

What is your purpose in life? If you are like me, you spent quite a bit of time in your youth and young adult life just trying to figure that one out. Some of you may not even have a clue yet! It is only after we understand our purpose in Jesus that we can begin to live a meaningful life. Our main purpose in life is to follow Christ with our whole hearts - allowing him to be the central part of our lives. All the other 'stuff' we pursue as some form of 'purpose' in our lives really is an outflow of his grace in our lives.

As this chapter unfolds, we find the reminder: "and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will GUARD your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. How does this peace actually help us to walk within the purpose God has for us? When we learn to rejoice in our salvation and actually realize God is always present with us wherever we go and whatever we do, we begin to find peace with what it is we come to realize as our 'purpose' in life. 

As we are reminded, we are to worry less and pray more. I think we spend a whole lot of time 'worrying' our way toward a 'purpose' and far less time than we should 'praying' with purpose. Did you catch that? We spend time 'pursuing' purpose, while God asks us to take time to live within our purpose, communing with him. As Paul goes on within this chapter, he wants us to know all that worrying over things far outside of our control is really serving one purpose - to keep us away from fulfilling God's purpose within our lives. Instead, we are to take those things to God in prayer - worry over nothing, pray about everything (4:6-7)

Maybe we would 'feel' a bit more 'in tune' with God's purpose for our lives if we learned to turn our thoughts toward the things he actually wants us to be thinking about. As we begin to meditate on good and true thoughts (4:8), focusing on godly examples and our own behavior (4:9), we begin to see this is not really about our 'self-man'. It is about him - this daily walk becomes a thing in which we find great contentment and fulfillment. If we are not fulfilled in our daily walk, it could just be a result of us not drawing near to him. Just sayin!

Distress or Destress

Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. (2 Corinthians 7:10)

There are many in our world today who know too much distress - anxiety, great pain, acute physical and mental suffering. They are subjected to pressure from all sides, stressing and straining to keep it all together, embarrassed and exhausted by the strain. It may seem too simplistic to say this, but what we need more of in this life is 'destress' not 'distress'. To become less anxious, under less pressure, able to let go of the weight we are carrying on our own. That one simple letter changes a whole lot, doesn't it?

Too many times we don't allow our 'distress' to drive us toward God - we allow it to carry us further from God. We find ourselves caught up in the things that push against us on all sides and succumb to the exhaustion of the battle of trying to keep the walls from collapsing in around us. There is a great deal of distress, but our response to it is to move deeper into worry or anxiety. Do you know what the opposite of distress really is? It is a place of contentment - even in the midst of pressure - peace prevails. 

Many will admit this is kind of 'pie-in-the-sky' kind of dream for them - to be truly content in the midst of the hardest of hardship. There is just something about distress that can drive us forward, though. We might not fully understand how God can use distress to bring us closer to him, but there is something in distress that can cause us to see the advantage we really hold in Christ Jesus. We just need to draw closer to him in order to see that advantage! It is so easy to allow distress to pull us away, but there is something that happens when we dig in a little deeper, falling freely into the arms of Jesus.

In times of our greatest distress there is something we can do that might just change our point of reference - to change our perspective of the stressful circumstances. We can begin to recall our blessings. There are tons and tons of blessings God has given in our lives - that is one reason I journal those things! To look back and see what God has done before this current stressful time. In those moments of recalling his blessings, there is a flood of contentment and peace that comes. Why? God is honored when we remember what he has done - it is a form of worship. 

Distress is undone in the presence of God. Don't let it drive you further away from his presence, but allow it to pull nearer and nearer to his heart. Begin by recalling the last blessing you can remember and work from there. The more and more we focus on what God has done, the more we will begin to see what he is doing right here and now. We will soon find our distress is turned into a whole lot of 'de-stressing'. Just sayin!