GOSPEL :: FAMILY :: MISSION
I learned at a young age to judge the emotional temperature of a person by the look on their face. If my mom’s face looked sad I braced myself for an emotional outburst. If my mom’s boyfriend looked angry I looked for an escape route. If my mom was smiling as she sang along with Stevie Ray Vaughn then I knew it was safe.
There isn’t much that’s guaranteed in this life. We’re not guaranteed health, wealth or prosperity this side of Heaven. In the blink of an eye our health can fail. In a split second, someone we dearly love can become deathly ill. There’s no guarantee that the paycheck we’re working for today will be there tomorrow. We’re not guaranteed to succeed in marriage, vocation or education.
My thoughts were provoked this morning. After a discussion with a friend over breakfast, my thoughts were captivated by this question: “What barriers exist between me and my Heavenly Father that are actually bridges of invitation to relationship with him?”
Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think: “I feel worthless”? I struggle with my own sense of worthlessness too. It’s easy for me to feel valuable when I’ve done something right or when someone treats me nice. But when I fail at something or when someone treats me unfairly it’s easy for me to fall into self-pity or despair thinking that I must be worthless. In other words, I struggle with letting my behavior or someone else’ behavior dictate what I believe about my sense of worth.
There are some days when I feel completely overwhelmed. Like the world is caving in on me. Like all the paths forward are filled with rough terrain. Like all of my hope is gone. Like all of my dreams have been crushed. Like there’s a heavy burden on my back that I cannot escape.
Did God choose you before you chose him? Or did God choose you because you chose him? One of the core truths of the Bible is that God chose us before we were able to choose him. As you think about this, what makes this doctrine so hard for you to believe? Is it simply that somewhere deep down inside you’ve always believed that God chose you because you chose him? Have you always believed that God knew you would come to your senses one day? Did God just know that you would be a good little boy or a good little girl and choose him someday so therefore he chose you? Wouldn’t this mean that you and I somehow control God’s decision to choose us because of our good behavior? What kind of comfort does that give us?
I hate to admit that I struggle with fear. I’d rather be seen as fearless. Confident. In control. Courageous. Assured. Steady. Notice that I said “I’d rather be seen”.
Take a minute here and answer this question: “Who am I” and complete this sentence “I am …………” on a piece of paper. How we answer this question and complete this sentence in our worst moments and in our best moments says a lot about our maturity in our walk with Jesus.
An unsatisfied child will wear me out and leaving me feeling more than a little bit discombobulated. Christy and I are still in the middle of raising our seven children and we’ve experienced our fair share of the exhaustion that comes with relating to an unsatisfied child. Children are ambitious little creatures. When they want something really bad they will do almost anything to get it and they’ll often do whatever it takes to manipulate a situation so that they can satisfy whatever their little desires want.
As we come into the last week of our series on what it means to be the people of The Well, I want to recap what we’ve learned throughout this series. You may recall that we began this series back in June by studying Acts 2:42 – 47 and then we picked up again in early August by studying John 4:1 – 42.
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