Feeling What I Know

I realized once again tonight that I have one of the most precious and sought after gifts of mankind: I feel safe and at peace. 

Do you realize how rare that is for humanity? Even among Christians, we do not always feel what we know.

I have no fear of life, because I have full confidence and trust in my Father. He is trustworthy and I know He loves and wants the best for me. What a blessing!

For the LORD loves justice and will not abandon His faithful ones. They are kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked will be destroyed.

Psalm 37:28

Our Lord and God, You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because You have created all things, and because of Your will they exist and were created.

Revelation 4:11

For the word of the LORD is right, and all His work is trustworthy.

Psalm 33:4

Do not despise the LORD's instruction, my son,
    and do not loathe His discipline;
    for the LORD disciplines the one He loves,
    just as a father, the son he delights in.
Proverbs 3:11-12

The one who has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. And the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I also will love him and will reveal Myself to him."
John 14:21

My Two Cents

God amazed me yet again. Yesterday I was blessed to be able to go and buy a new laptop that I could not afford. A few weeks ago we decided that it was getting close to time to start earnest prayer for a new one, and this past week the finances for it came in. Here's the best part: I was given through several gifts, $1,070.00. Do you know how much everything came to that I needed? $1,069.98.

I suppose God needed to make sure I kept my two cents worth.

We had asked Him to provide no more than what we needed so that we would know what He knew was best for us, and He did. That's the best way to shop! I prayed while shopping around and comparing prices and deals that He would guide me to the right one, and He even gave me a secondary confirmation that this was the right laptop. God knows that I am a natural worrier: What if that better deal was just around the corner? What if I was ripped off? What if...what if...what if? So He taught me to take it all to him in prayer. It's not like He doesn't know what the best deal is and what I will need down the road, so why not trust Him?

Do you take your purchases to the Lord? Take some time today to ask the Lord what it is He wants you to have and to change your heart's desires to match.

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart's desires. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act, making your righteousness shine like the dawn, your justice like the noonday.
Psalm 37:4-5

Dreaming

Why do we ask children what they want to be when they grow up? Because they are good at dreaming and making long term goals. Now, I know adults do as well, but there is something special about the way in which children do it. My friend and I were talking about the difference, and agreed that it was because children are not jaded by reality and "can not"s. They are free to dream. They have no preconceived notions about how the world works and what is acceptable or expected. They are invincible.

As a child, I use to dream of being a truck driver. Don't laugh. Well, not too much. To me, truck drivers were people who saw the world. They traveled everywhere. That desire and dream for me to travel is still there. I have the feeling that one day it will be fulfilled, though not in the way I first imagined it.

What do we as adults do though, when the dreams we had as a child have been fulfilled, perhaps even completed, and we are left wondering, “Now what?” Well, we know that God knows the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11), and that His goal for us is not complete until we have breathed our last.

As I started thinking this over today, a few Scriptures came to mind.

“Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
Perhaps when we have fulfilled the goals set before us by the Lord, and we are still alive, it is time to rest and delight in Him. The amazing thing is that as we are focused solely on God, He begins to fill our heart with the desires that please Him, and make them our own. We then begin to have new dreams and goals, I think, as God plants those new desires in our hearts. Remember, He wants to give us the desires of our heart, so He'll put them there if we leave it open to Him. This most likely won't happen very quickly, so keep delighting in Him. You'll wake up one day and know.

It's really hard to get over being an adult. We know too much, to be honest. We don't have the bliss of ignorance. Some of the other verses that came to mind were Matthew 18:2-5. This is the passage where Jesus takes a small child and says that we must become like children, and welcome children. I believe it is also good to think of this in reference to our dreams and goals too. Believe me, it takes a child-like faith to dream as big as we know God can bless and use us!

Think about your aspirations today. Do they match up with what God is doing in your life? Are you still waiting with a child-like faith, or have you seen them completed? Read Matthew 18:2-5 and Philippians 3:12-14, then go over your dreams, or being planning them, with God today.