Purposeful Faith

Tag - plans

We Can Make Our Plans

plans

Post By: Angela Parlin

I had a plan for the weekend.

I stuffed an entire suitcase. I packed outfits and shoes for each day. I gathered journals & pens & vitamins & snacks. I confirmed a hotel room. I cleaned the car, inside and out.

I looked forward to enjoying the company of some long-distance friends. I was all ready—to run out the door, to drive down the road with a friend, and to soak up all kinds of help I needed at this weekend retreat.

I’ll be honest, it had been a long week at home. First, some of the kids were home from school a few days with coughs, and then my oldest struggled through a high fever for days.

And then something worse happened. I–the Mama taking care of everyone else–started to feel sick.

At first I tried to deny it and told myself I was okay. Mind over matter, right? I tried to stick to the plan. To not be sick.

But hours later, I knew. I was not heading out the door for anything, especially a fun weekend retreat.

Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps. Jeremiah 10:23

I may have had a plan, but my plan was not going to happen.

I’m a fan of making plans. I think we all are, really. We may not all be the Type-A, schedule all the hours, write-it-all-down kind of planners, but we all make plans. It’s a part of life.

I’m also a fan of my plans working out the way I plan. Anybody else? {Sidenote: So God made me a Mom—to give me lots of practice dealing with the opposite.}

These last few weeks of sickness were a good reminder that I have so little control over my days, my plans, and the steps I take. But even more than that, it reminded me that I am fully dependent on the Lord.

And this we will do, if God permits. Hebrews 6:3

In the verse above, the writer of Hebrews declares our complete dependence on the Lord, in 8 little words.

Just before this verse, he encouraged the believers to move forward toward maturity, so that they wouldn’t need to be taught the basic foundations of their faith repeatedly. God’s plan for each of us includes growth and maturity, and we each play a part in our growth.

But it’s also true that we don’t completely control it.

Instead, we depend on God, even in the area of our spiritual growth. He is the One who opens our hearts and ultimately causes us to grow.

So we purpose to move forward; we plan to do this, and we will, if and when God permits.

We are completely dependent on the God who gives us breath, and sometimes that’s easy to forget.

In our day-to-day lives, especially these days, we have so many tools for self-sufficiency at our disposal, tools like the internet and vehicles and finances and opportunities and planners in our hands.

Even so, our lives are not our own. We live and move and breathe by the will of the Lord our God.

Even when we don’t understand what He’s allowing in our lives, His will triumphs over our own.

Even when we believe the Lord is leading us one way or another, He has the final say.

We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9, NLT

On the other side of this illness, once again I am certain. He is good. He is in control. And He is worthy of my trust. Praise the Lord.

///////////

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15, ESV

Angela Parlin

Angela Parlin is a wife and mom to 3 rowdy boys and 1 sweet girl. In addition to spending time with friends and family, she loves to read and write, spend days at the beach, watch romantic comedies, and organize closets. But most of all, she loves Jesus and writes to call attention to the beauty of life in Christ, even when that life collaborates with chaos. Join her at www.angelaparlin.com, So Much Beauty In All This Chaos.

Seizing Spiritual Confidence: 4 Foundational Keys

spiritual confidence

I got to the end of the day, pulled into the driveway, stared out the front windshield and laid down a verdict, “I didn’t succeed at loving. My morning goals – looked like a blown-out tire by afternoon.

Sure, I began the day with aspirations a mile long – I’d do great things with God, we’d pour out love on people, we would encourage the world with the love of Jesus.  But then, life happened. Ugh.  I felt much more like a woman on a treadmill – working up a sweat and getting nowhere – than a woman on a mission of grand importance.

I exhaled. Scrunched down in my seat. Clenched the steering wheel.

I stink.
God, I am sorry that I didn’t win for you today.
I am sorry that I let you down.
My heart is to go all out for you, but I lost.

Have you sat like me –
wanting to make progress only to end up discouraged?

I recently signed up for Michael Hyatt’s Free To Focus Productivity Summit. Reason being? I have a minuscule amount of time to complete a massive amount of ministry. I need help.

Learning a ton, Michael said something that struck me; it clicked: Not keeping up, makes you feel like you are losing. Feeling like your losing diminishes productive confidence.

My confidence ride likes waves. I go high when I am confident, but when the waves crash – so do I. I eat it.

With this, I wonder, shouldn’t my confidence look more steady, more consistent?

More like Jesus?

More grace-filled, less about getting ahead?
More locked and loaded on eternity, less concerned with check-marks?
More set on God’s big mission, less engrossed with endless busyness?

How does God see confidence?

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Heb. 4:16

I might say, “Do more”,
but God says,
Be more with me. Come more – to me.”

Lasting confidence.
Enduring confidence.
Unwavering confidence.

What if I no longer lived like a temperature gauge –
hot and on fire with passion one day, cold in defeat the next?

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish;
no one will snatch them out of my hand. Jo. 10:28

Godly confidence is knowing that God will never let you go.

It is less in what we do,
or how we see things, and more in who He is – and what he does.

He has our future. Confidence!
He knows our way. Confidence!
He will be faithful. Confidence!
We can fly arms wide open into his will. Confidence!
We can fall and he will still make my fly. Confidence!
We can not know the way – but he will. Confidence!

Confidence in Jesus, can’t be stolen, revoked or denied. It is a solid rock; it does not waver.

On what ground does your confidence stand confidence?

Achievement? People pleasing? Perfection? Performance? Busyness?  Perhaps it is time to exchanges confidence that crashes like waves for rock-solid confidence that can’t be stolen.

4 Foundational Truths that Breed Confidence

  • There is no effective building of anything unless the Lord truly resides over everything.
    Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
    Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. Ps. 127:1
  • God’s work is less about what you do and more about what He’s already decided to do.
    For I am confident of this very thing,
    that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil. 1:6
  • You don’t need to fear, God protects you from the snares.
    For the LORD will be your confidence
    And will keep your foot from being caught. Prov. 3:26
  • You don’t have to know where you are going, just that God is going there with you.
    Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  Heb. 11:1

The real power of confidence transcends our natural eye. When we pull our strength from the supernatural, something amazing happens – we often do the supernatural. Suddenly, focus is exactly what we have and progress is exactly what we get. It never comes by our strength – but always comes by His. This removes the pressure. It is a heavenly movement on our behalf, not a heart-attack ridden movement by our striving.

This kind of confidence? It makes all the difference.

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The Incredible Power of a Small Pause

I gripped my chin, thinking, I need to reach out and ask her if there was a problem with me. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t seem to be progressing forward with the work I had turned in. I knew, it must be – what I had done wasn’t good enough. She thought my work was horrible, trash-worthy, and she just didn’t know how to tell me. She was avoiding me. The hair on my skin rose with the awkwardness I was about to approach.

I typed the email.

Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut. (Prov. 10:19 MSG)

Rather than pressing play on my mouth
was God called me to press – pause?

I waited, staring at the cursor. So much time had passed and she had given me nothing. Still, God says it wise to wrangle wild words. I minimized the screen, considered the thought and went along with my day, wondering, often, if I should text.

What harm would it do? At least I would know. At least I could tie down my emotions, rather than having them fly everywhere.

pause

Often, our greatest goal when we charge is to change our feelings. I knew many of my words were about me feeling good, and not about producing a good and Godly outcome. They were about me knowing – now. They were about me feeling – happy. They were about me getting answers – so I knew I was worthy.

He who restrains his words has knowledge, And he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Prov. 17:26

A cool spirit. It sounds light. It sounds like a refreshing breeze. It sounds easy. Understanding arrived: She is busy. I can offer her space.

Press pause, Kelly.

A week passed, and an email arrived. It was from her. She saw my work and not only wanted to use it, but in a more prominent capacity. God knew all along.

You never know God’s good cause,
being worked through your pause.

You want his hand ruling over your outcome, not your hasty mouth.

What I know now is I could have ruined it all by racing in to rectify my feelings. I could have spoiled what God was growing up in the perfect timing. I could have missed a growth opportunity in patience. They can be the hardest kind.

How do you do with opportunities of patience?
When do your feelings call out to you to “fix” things?
Do you speak a heap of demands or from a heart of love?

I realize now. I can lay back. Why?  Because what I want to rush into, God is already in.

One God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all. Eph. 4:6

He is in it and is carving spiritual and emotional strides.  He is ironing everything out. He is making all things work together for his good, my good and the good of the entire story that extends beyond my here and now. I can trust that. I can believe in that. I can hope in that.

pause
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving… (1 Tim. 4:4)

And, so, what small wait, what unheard response or what dead end – in those, I will remember God is there and because he is there, goodness is there. It is who he is, it is what he does and it is simply the only thing he can ever produce.

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Expecting a Dream

Expecting a Dream

What happens when your mind is dead set on expecting a dream?

You visualize the smiling and congratulatory faces as it comes true.
You hear the cheers of acclaim wildly reverberating in your heart.
You can only imagine how things would change, “If…”

You see it – your heart could finally lay down and rejoice, find relaxation and peace, if only…

This is how it works for me.

My dreams seem to hold the power to be the
Creator and Originator of my present anxious feelings. 

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Mt. 7:7

Surely, God loves to hear my prayers,
I think he just doesn’t want to have to lay his eyes on my idols.

So often, I have grabbed on to the future’s potential like a kid trying to grab hold of a cloud. I have tried to hug what was never mine to begin with. I have tried to own what was miles away, as if by continuing to see it and reach it and demand it and cry about it and keep my eyes set on it and daydream about it and talk about it- it will never have the chance to fade away.

But, sometimes it does.

It just vaporates. It just disappears.

And then I am left devastated, demolished and simply agitated
at God for abandoning me.

Does the God of peace intend this turbulence of our hearts?

I realize that in the times I expected big bucks, big cheers and big sensational feelings – I missed my big God. I missed the quiet moment of expecting his comfort, his leading and his power as he tried to guide my heart down a different path. I missed the powerful show of his presence in small ache of my heart as I cried out for “more”- because my eyes were set on “my dream.”

How often do we say, “I’m not looking at you God. I want this!”?

Why does it feel that what we claim, should be ours? Front Seat, I called it!

As if when we do enough “knee-time” God sees exactly how dream-worthy we are. Can’t he see I am doing the “hard time?”

I think God made me a dreamer. Not for my glory, but for his. Not for my wild imaginings, but for his outpourings.

My ways lead to foolery. (Prov. 12:15)
My ways seem right and end in death (Prov. 14:12)
I may chart my course, but the Lord owns my footsteps. (Prov. 16:9)

If God owns the way I head, how can I war against him?

Ask not – what are my dreams, ask what are his dreams – for me?

His will will be done, no matter how much I hold “my will” hostage, saying “you’re not going anywhere.” And, even if my will is permitted, in the end my heart will suffer the damage.

God loves us. He loves our dreams. He loves our passion. Even more, he loves our heart.

May the internal knitting of our dreams always be stitched up tight into the fabric of his love, his grace and his power. May the patches of our hope link together solely through the power of his Spirit in us. May our ears be inclined to listen and our eyes be inclined to see – his paths, his heart to love and his example of death when he desired life.

The paths of humility.

But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Ja. 4:6

Where do you want us to go God? Not our will, but your will (truly, honestly, hopefully) be done. We know, by our own power we will fall straight down and bruise our knee. We can’t get out of ourself, but with you – and your example of Jesus – we can get back up again and walk towards your purposes by your Spirit that removes the old us, from the new us. Amen.

the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. Ps. 147:11

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Linking up with 5 Minute Friday and Susan B. Mead.