The path God takes us down

Before I headed out to San Antonio I had the opportunity to go and hear Ron Hall and Denver Moore, authors of Same Kind of Different as Me, speak.

As I listened to their story again I was consumed by the thought that we serve an Awesome God who, if we are willing to follow will take us down paths like the one he took Ron and Denver down. Scary paths, where only the next step is revealed to us, and the only way we are able to take it is out of faith.

When I look around at this world it is clear that most Christians are missing out on the life God wants to give them. A big, full life. Instead, they have settled for the life they have chosen for themselves, full earthly treasures that soon reveal themselves as junk. When God asks us to walk down a path with Him, we politely say no thank you, that doesn't sound fun, it sounds scary and it might even be painful and, frankly God I'd rather play it safe so I'll say no for now and stay right here.

We have been mislead by the world and are confused by what is the "good life". The comfortable life we seek turns out to be filled with stress and emptiness, accompanied by the nagging thought that this cannot be all there is. We find that there is no joy in this luke warm existence.

Without really meaning to Ron and Denver chose to follow God and were forever changed by one of the paradoxes of our walk. When we obey our Master and follow just because He said so, our deepest joy is found in the pain and our deepest peace is found in the middle of a terrible storm. The thrill of living is finally found and it is better than all the things we've tried and have failed us time and again.

We cannot see the end of the paths God wants to lead us down, we must trust that He knows what He is doing. That He is Lord and we are his followers. We must be willing to act like a fool, building an ark when there are no rain clouds, or we will never experience so much of what God has for us in this life. A full, overflowing, abundant life.

"I have come that they may have life and have it abundance" John 10:10
" I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." John 10:10 (The Message translation)