Step out there.

Some interesting stuff that I'm learning and talking to some wise people about:

Faith-

It's always interesting when we talk about God opening and closing doors. I think that we continue to pray and meditate on important decisions or events in our life. I think for a lot of people that we never 'hear' a definite "Yes!" or a definite "No!". I mean sometimes it's just blatant when yes's are yes's and no's are no's. But I think sometimes we can just sit on it and pray and ask that God would answer our prayers. It's been interesting to read some of George Mueller's diary excerpts and i think something that was very convicting to me was something he said about prayer, (which i'm going to paraphrase), "All to often we pray and then try to answer our own prayers instead of allowing God to take control". I can testify about that in my life, about praying certain stuff and then trying to answer them by my own strength. I am not advocating that we try answering our own prayers. But I do think that there is somewhat of a comparison when looking at our lives and when we never get a clear "yes" or a clear "no" that we should begin to walk in faith. Faith means that you have to take a step out there not knowing exactly what is going to happen, but also trusting that regardless of the result, you are going to trust God to be who He is. Trusting that if you aren't suppose to change majors he's going to guide you back to your original major or trusting that if you are suppose to move to another town that he will be providing the way for you to get there.

I've found that when I'm in that place of, "Is God opening or closing these doors?" that I need to be continually evaluating my heart and asking God for conviction. Because when I'm in this place of "Is God opening or closing these doors", He truly might be screaming at you, "JOHN! NO THIS IS NOT WHAT I HAVE PLANNED FOR YOU! YOU ARE ACTING OUT OF SELFISH MOTIVES! YOU ARE BEING PRIDEFUL! YOU ARE...."

But going back to this notion/concept/idea of "stepping-out" there. My freshman year of college I heard a sermon one Sunday morning and the preacher was saying something along the lines of, "God needs you to take the first step... of course He could physically make you do something because He is God... but he wants you to start moving, he wants you to start living (which is an action) for Him..." Another message that I heard similar to this concept of living for Christ, he referred to the Great Commission (as some call it the "Great Suggestion"), to "GO therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28.19). And as the Greek reads, for 'go', it means continually go, meaning it's not a stop and go kind of instruction, it means that it's a continuation process. Continue doing these things.

So what does this have to do with Faith and stepping out there? I think that God is continually asking us to put our faith to test. (This is an incomplete thought... so i'll explain more next time...)