What it All Boils Down To: Obedience

A Kiss From God

Sometimes there are moments so special, so amazing, they take your breath away. Sometimes those moments are share-able and sometimes they are just love notes from God. A way to show He cares, He sees, He approves of and loves you. 

I had one of those moments yesterday. A love note, wrapped in an email, from someone I have never met. Her name is Sabrina. She had a dream of a Barbie that looked fine in the box, but was in a state of brokenness. The dream made such an impression, she knew God was trying to show her something. So, when she awoke, she googled "my brokenness" and discovered my blog, complete with Barbie and a title about brokenness.... 

Then she discovered my book, and got that too. 

This isn't about another book sale. This isn't about another blog subscriber. This isn't even about me.

This is about God's faithfulness to His kids. 

Taste and See

 "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trust in him." Psalms 34:8 

In the desert God supplied the Children of Israel with manna from heaven. This met their basic need for food. It was a sign of God's love and faithfulness to His children. The Bible is full of stories of God's love and provision. 

Here is another one about a woman named Ruth. She was a widow, not even a Jew, and she left all she knew to serve her aging mother-in-law and accompany her back home. She was lonely, poor, and practically homeless. Yet, for Ruth, God provided favor and blessings and a second husband. Through this provision- generations and generations later - God supplied the earthly  lineage of Jesus. Jesus was a gift for all people. Freely given, and the perfect sign of God's love for us.  

I guess what I am getting at is this. We think God's provision is just about us. Sometimes it is.Sometimes it is about meeting a need, like hunger. The manna in the desert met that need. Sometimes, and probably more often than we know, it is about setting us up for provision so we can in turn, be a conduit for God to provide something for someone else.

It's not about us! 

This is the Lord's faithfulness in action. He set up a blog a little over a year ago, in an unknown corner of the world WIDE web and one of the things it did was meet a need for a woman in San Antonio named Sabrina. Did that have anything to do with me? Yes and no. 

The Power of Obedience

Yes, it had something to do with me. It is after all my blog and my book, but that is where things get tricky. It doesn't have anything to do with my talent, or my ability. For without Christ I can do nothing, "but with God all things are possible." 

It boils down to obedience. 

When we obey the voice of the Lord, that small whisper that prompts us to do the uncomfortable thing, the hard thing, the impossible thing, we give Him the room to work in our lives, and unbeknownst to us, in the lives of people thousands of miles and many generations past us. 

I obeyed 13 months ago and began a blog and this weekend, someone I never met, received the encouragement they needed for their lives. This is how God works. 

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Hebrews 13:8 NIV 

He provided for the children of Israel, and He provided for Ruth, and He provided for you and I. God is not like man, He does not change or waiver. He works the same today as He did thousands of years and hundreds of generations ago: through people. 

Someone once said to me "We cry out for more of Jesus, but sometimes what we really need is to give Jesus more of ourselves."

What have we got to lose? What has the world got to gain? Surrender and obey so you too can taste and see that the Lord is GOOD! 

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What is God whispering to you about? Leave your comment below. 

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Your Dream: Small Beginnings Big God

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

“Who despises the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10

I wonder? 

I have been guilty of this. I think there are so many times when we look back (hind sight being 20/20) and say ‘who would have thought all of this would have started like that?’ 

Recently, at my mom-in-love’s 75th birthday party, someone asked her that very question as they looked around at all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Her reply? 

“God did.” 

God is a God of small beginnings. 

The Bible is full of examples of small beginnings. 

· The manger
· A shepherd boy becoming a king
· A widow picking left over grain on the edge of a field 

Everyone starts somewhere. 

Joseph started his journey to greatness in the bottom of a well, cast aside by his family, alone, hungry, in the dark and damp. He had a dream. God gave it to him. His small beginnings were not just a way to keep Joseph humble; they were a way to bring God all the glory. 

There are moments when you will feel the momentum of the Spirit pushing you. You will know that there is something brewing. Change in the air and sparks of creativity and clarity are lighting up your world. 

Then there will be those moments when your but is bigger than your faith. I get it. I have been there. These moments are the important ones. These are the make it or break it moments of your dream. 

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9

More so than the great triumph of getting started, the real victory is in follow through. 

For me I have had plenty of starts. I have started books numerous times, I have started hobbies that never really go anywhere, but at the start I had all the hope and excitement I could muster. I threw myself into whatever project I had going. I became compulsive to the point that I was consumed with the work rather than the process. 

Aesop had something right. “Slow and steady wins the race.” Be the turtle, not the hare. 

Do not get worn down because you get bogged by details. Do not sweat the small stuff. God sees where He has you and where you are going. 

God is not confused. 

His plans for you are the same in your moment of doubt as they were in your moment of clarity. He has not changed his mind about you. 

So do not look around at your small beginnings and mistake them for “smallness”. Your dreams are bigger than you. The only way they will come to pass is by relying on God to add to your humble offering and multiply it into something that brings Him glory. 

Do not despise your small beginning. Get excited. The widow in the field married well and lived happily ever after. The shepherd who became king made mistakes, but God called him a man after His own heart. That manger housed the most amazing gift of all: a Savior for mankind. 

Small beginnings means there is plenty of room for God to do BIG things. 

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What is your dream? (Leave a comment below)