Reminders

Often times, I get so focused on the here and now that I neglect to acknowledge the blessings of the past and the promises of the future. I don’t want to sound pessimistic about the present, most of the times being in the present is where I need to be. It’s in the present that I’m able to seize the day [carpe diem] make the most out of every opportunity that God presents to me; however, when it’s not balanced with the right perspective it becomes overbearing…overbearing and what may feel like at times a “dryness.”

When I feel, hear, or think about “dryness” I’m reminded of a leadership meeting back home in Chicago. Our youth pastor’s wife just got back from maternity leave, and she gave a word of encouragement/challenge to us, “like Elijah spoke life into the dry bones…so should you speak life over the dry areas of your life. If you don’t, who will?” For some – like me – this first went over my head, but as it soaked in and as time and circumstances came up over and over God began to demonstrate to me what that meant.

For me, it meant that God’s purpose for Elijah in that moment wasn’t to raise an army to fight, neither was it for God to show off his mad miracle skills…it was personal expression of love towards Elijah. Elijah, even as a prophet, was in a dry period in his life – which should tell you that it can happen to anyone, doesn’t matter your position or spiritualness. God knew that he – like most of us, including myself – needed a visual representation to remind him of who He was, is, and will be in his life. When Elijah spoke to the physical dry bones, he was also speaking to the dryness in his life. And as life was restored to the bones so was his spiritual life restored, refreshed, and renewed.

I want to be like Elijah in having the faith, confidence, or whatever he did have to speak life to the dry areas in myself by remembering who God is in my life. I want to have the right perspective – God’s perspective - in the here and now in order to be all that I can be for Him. I don’t want to get bogged down with circumstances or uncertainties in life that I neglect to acknowledge the awesomeness of God in my life, the blessings He’s provided for me in the past and the promises He’s given me for the future.

It’s time to start speaking life, to remind myself of the blessing and the promises yet to come. God hasn’t let me down yet. Out of all the obstacles that came my way in being a missionary, God removed ALL in His timing and in His way. If He was able to do that, I should have no doubt that not only He has the best in store for me but He’ll continue to make a way where there seems to be no way.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.