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| We have to know within ourselves when we are going or not going in the right direction. |
The Holy Spirit said to me one day, How can I give you what you want when you keep accepting what you don't want? You know how God is. When he speaks something profound to us, in one sentence we get years of revelation and learning. Only God can squeeze an extended time of learning into a few words.
His question that day seems elementary, right? It seems to be a simplistic question, one that requires no answer and, indeed, didn't even need to be asked? Well, if that is the case, why do we do it? Accept what we don't want, that is, instead of waiting on God?
Well, some reasons are:
- we think we'll never get it,
- we think we'll miss out on a deal,
- we're afraid we are not doing God's will by waiting,
- we feel we'll be destitute (or more destitute) or lose a lot
- we want to do it now,
- we trusted God before and were disappointed,
- our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak, we're simply tired of waiting.
I don't have an answer for all of these concerns, except to say that we have to know within ourselves when we are going or not going in the right direction at any given time. Sometimes, we have to advance into the territory of not doing God's will before we understand how he works. It is always a learning process but he is always there to help us along, whether it be onto a new path or over the same old path from which he tried to deliver us.
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| God wants to fill our cups with what will help us to be successful. |
When we accept what we don't want to end up with, we become immersed in living a small fraction of the life that God planned for us. We think that we are living our best life and that all is good, so we no longer focus on God in that area. In this scenario, there is no place for God to give us what he had for us. The cup that he wants to fill to overflowing is not only partially filled by our own doings but what it is filled with is more than likely not good for us. It certainly is not the best for us.
Once we realize that something is wrong with this picture, we're way down the road and God has to lead us back to the crossroads. He is always willing, but this takes more effort, time and sometimes even money. By the time we do this several times, through a lack of patience, our lives are almost spent. We're almost to the end when it's time to leave here. Well how is that bad, you ask. I'm going to the Lord now, so it doesn't matter anymore.
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| What if to get you where you are living your best life yet God needs you to lose some things? |
It does matter, however, if near the end of our lives we tarry and can't do much. In our declining years, it's sad to leave this world mulling over regrets about what we could have accomplished, the dreams we could have realized, the people we could have helped had we been patient and learned to do it God's way.
So what if doing it God's way seems to cause you to sink to a level where you did not ever think you'd be? What if you lose something? What if you give up something, a chance, an opportunity? What if you feel fear? Anxiety? Ambivalence? What if to get you where you are living your best life yet God needs you to lose these things, be in these places, experience these uncertainties?
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| A successful spirit births a successful life that reflects doing it God's way. |
Experiencing them God's way with a favorable earthly as well as a blessed eternal outcome is better than experiencing them through doing things our own way with a failed and eternally-devoid outcome. You see, the things that we do God's way, in Jesus' name, last and have eternal significance. The things we do our way do not last and do not store up for us eternal riches in the spirit.
It's very simple. When we persist in opening doors that God has obviously closed to us or we turn our backs on the doors that he has opened, we accept flawed ways of doing things and reject new ways in Christ Jesus. God cannot give us what he wants us to have if we keep filling our lives with what we think we need or with the thinly-veiled decisions of failure that we've utilized before. God has our best interests at heart and his will is for us to succeed, first of all, in the spiritual way that gives lasting success. A successful spirit births a successful life that reflects doing it God's way.
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| God has our best interests at heart and wants us to first succeed spiritually. |
There's no space or place for God's best once we fill our needs in the same old ways that are not subject to God because their origin is in the flesh. God's ways can be initially painful, scary or unsettling, but the Christian life is a New Way, after all. That in itself is unnerving but our Father God is ever willing to help us to successes that we cannot contain, as we learn to do it his way and stop accepting what we don't want.
Isaiah 41:10
Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:13
For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
