what it was really all about a/k/a perception a/k/a less like scars

2008 is winding down… lots of thoughts today.

what did 2008 bring to you? more importantly, how do you perceive what 2008 brought to you and how has your perception shaped your response?

“God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time.  but the right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time.”  –  mark batterson from in a pit with a lion on a snowy day (a book which i will be referring to a lot in the coming months)

sure, it’s cliche to say ‘perception is reality’, but it’s quite often true.  but the fact that your perception can often shape your reality can be dangerous, especially if your perception is skewed in any way.  if your perception is tainted, your reality will be twisted.

i love this song by sara groves called ‘less like scars’.  the essence of the song is that “time” is the great equalizer, and the perspective that it brings will often shine a light on what you thought “it” was, and reveal what “it” really was.

“less like tearing, more like building / less like captive, more like willing
less like breakdown, more like surrender / less like haunting, more like remember

and i feel You here, and You’re picking up the pieces, forever faithful
it seemed out of my hands, a bad situation, but You are able
and in Your hands the pain and hurt look less like scars
and more like character

less like a prison, more like my room / it’s less like a casket, more like a womb
less like dying, more like transcending / less like fear, less like an ending”

sara groves – “less like scars”

there is a lot of wisdom there, and that doesn’t happen overnight.  it takes time and a lot of spiritual maturity to get to the point where you can look back on the road that brought you to the place where you now stand and not only see it as purposeful, but truly believe that every moment was divinely deliberate, even though you couldn’t see it.  as ’08 comes to a close, can you look at what you thought afflicted you and see it as something that empowered you… can you see what looked like a scar and see it as character… intentionally and specifically designed to equip you for what you couldn’t see yet?

i believe 2009 is going to be an amazing and important year.  i strongly believe that if you look through the eyes of faith in ’09, you will see what ’08 was really about.

live high… it’s friday

it’s been quite a week.  as the weekend rolls in, i am thankful for how i have seen the hand of God orchestrate things in my life this week.

my hope is alive and my expectation is stretching and wiping the sleep from its eyes, waking from an unexpected but purposeful slumber.

“live high, live mighty, live righteously”, says jason mraz.  thanks, jason.  i think i will do just that.  … and a happy friday to you, too!

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expectancy

// becoming… expectant \\

I have come to the conclusion that some people don’t experience more because they don’t expect more. Ephesians 3:20 says that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. For so many years, I have heard that scripture read and quoted, but the emphasis was always put on God doing ‘exceeding abundantly’, and not so much on the “above all that we ask or think”.

Maybe we don’t receive the ‘exceeding abundantly” because our “asking or thinking” is missing the mark. It would appear that God is asking us to give Him something to work with. I tend to dream big. Huge, in fact. And I believe with everything that is inside of me, that the more I dream, think and ask BIG, the more God is going to blow my mind and will come through with “exceeding abundantly” more than I could even dream.

I heard Pastor Brett Fuller preach a message once called “Encouragement & Destiny”. In it, he said it is vital to realize that God lives beyond our expectations and that He wants to take the limitations off of our expectations and cause us to become something that we never thought we could be.

If God lives beyond my expectations, then I can conclude that the more I expect, the more I will find God dwelling in a place that is further reaching than what I originally expected. The more I ask and think, the more my expectations fuel the exceeding and abundant working of God in my life. It is not the more I “hope” (the desire for a certain thing to happen), but the more I expect (an earnest faith that I will see the thing I am looking for).

Expectation is hope with a seed. A woman who is pregnant does not hope to give birth to a child, she expects to give birth because there is a tangible manifestation of what was once just a hope. That is why women who are pregnant do not say they are “hoping”, but rather they are “expecting”. For while she once hoped to have a child, once a seed had been planted her hope took root and became an expectation, an assurance that she will soon see the fruition of the process taking place inside of her, and now she knows it will only be a matter of time. It is what T.D. Jakes calls “the outworking of the internal.”

I don’t “hope” for these things, because I know the seed has been planted and they are are already available to me. I expect them. I expect big things. I expect divine appointments. I expect favor. I expect “chance encounters”. I expect unseen opportunities. I expect influence. I expect strategic, purposeful and divinely orchestrated relationships. I expect the unexpected.

I wonder what would happen in our lives today if we really began to expect God to do something big?