Fear or Pleasure

How do you view the will of God for the future?
Is it something to be feared and dreaded?
Is it a heavy burden to bear?
Is it exciting, joyous and a delight to look forward to?
Do you dream in real time about brilliant ideas or does life look like a lot of plodding?

I will stop asking questions, but I'm wondering if our general attitude towards life isn't biased by the way we look at His will. I don't think His plans are for it to be either all joyous or all difficult. But we sometimes long for pleasures forever more, and set out looking for happiness, when the things that make us more holy is what He is designing.

In the fray between our expectations and our reality, we struggle with truth. Lies don’t blatantly enter. Subtle back door entrances are the normal break-in method. While we are focused on complicated circumstances, in slips an unwanted visitor or two. This is why we should talk about the hard, stressing, or even traumatizing pieces of life. If you think about it, a lot of things happen simultaneously and keep you preoccupied so you don’t notice little shifts happening. I look back at a recent season, (several of them really) and shake my head at what can happen in the space of two months.

After walking through Intense for most of the past almost decade, and finally smelling the singe of burnout in my nostrils, I have to come to grips with the fact that I hardly believe God has good plans to give me a hope and a future. Maybe you are with me. Believing lies drags us down. There's a desperation to get over it really, like lungs grasping. Desolation sometimes sets the table for a perspective shift.

In the space of shifting table settings from a dark one, to a more reasonable perspective, God comes and sits. He offers presence. He offers love and grace. He pauses. We often are so focused on the next steps that we miss the moment. He on the other hand, savors having us at the table. He offers food to Elijah in 1Kings 19, cause He knew that the journey would be too much for him. Elijah goes on that strength for a long time. It's worth stopping to take a moment in His presence, especially if He wants to offer sustaining food. Stop and savor. Dig deep and enjoy. Let the moment become profound.

I will give a shameless plug for Life Ministries core 1&2 program. From them, I learned that we don’t just try to change the surface, but we dig down and find the belief: truth or lie behind the behavior. That’s why questions are a good thing. What do you really believe? If we change our beliefs, we change our actions because according to what is in our heart and mind, we act. I know my burnout has it’s basis not so much in my circumstances, but in what I think and feel about them. I will not allow myself to quit digging.

You may have something very different on the surface that you face, and you may not be shifting scenes from Asia to the USA, or back, but that doesn’t change the foundation beliefs form in your life. Typically, there are several general underlying themes that are common to all humans. I promise I don’t analyze most people or lump people in diagnosis. That doesn’t enter my mind most days cause I have too many exotic dishes on my own plate. Having a curiosity and wanting to grow from life experiences though, I do accept coffee or ice cream  invitations to solve world problems. If you have shameless burnout suggestions, feel free to send them my way.

Regardless of your journey, dare to enter into the deep. If you are exhausted with the current responses to your circumstances, look at your beliefs. Does God have good intentions or evil toward you? Only one of these options is true. One of the songs that I listen to over and over talks about “Truth is standing right in front of you... the way, the truth, the life...” If we look for it, and confront what isn’t, we will experience positive changes.

Replace the garbage with truth, and keep going. Don’t get down on yourself, but keep walking in relationship with God. Acknowledge where you went wrong, and then correct it. According to Dr. Seuss the one answer to messy “Oobleck” is simple. Say you’re sorry. Then move on.