Enjoy The Ride

Have you ever been afraid?  Silly question, I know.  Of course, you have.  We all have.

Have you ever let your fear dictate the course of your life?  Chances are the answer to this questions is "yes" too (at least a time or two).

So what does it take?  At what point do we let go of our fears and fully, truly trust God?  At what point do we make the conscious decision to get on the ride of life and simply enjoy it?

Life is short (as I discussed here).  We labor and toil.  We plan our lives and then get put out, fed up and done in when we run into a detour.  We don't like things we can't control.  We want fun but it has to be our kind of fun.  Or does it?

When will we finally realize that our lives are not about our plans. That when we get caught up in our own plans we tend to get a wee bit uptight.  If we're not getting upset, we're probably getting worried.  Neither one of those options sound much like a joy ride.

Think how much fun it would be if we simply allowed God to take us on a ride - fully trusting that the ride He puts us on is safe, rewarding, and a whole lot of fun.  Sure - the ride might be a roller coaster.  It's likely to have ups and downs, even some twists and turns but who really cares. In the end - it's invigorating and you want to get right back on.

Yes - we can stay on the kiddie ride.  You know - the little roller coaster that's really just a coaster.  It goes super slow and maybe gets you a couple of feet off the ground.  But what kind of life is that?  Let God take you on a great adventure.  When He says "Get on! I've got a plan", don't hold back.  Don't hesitate.  Get on!!!  Enjoy the ride. 

You can live your life according to what makes sense to the world or you can live the adventure God has in store for you. If you're wondering if a "calling" makes sense, stop wondering.  Life is too short to waste time in debate.  Get on the ride while you still can.

How Well Do We Trust God?

It's hard to learn to trust God when we don't give Him the opportunity to show His faithfulness.  How many times have you encountered a crisis, prayed to God for answers or help, then proceeded to deal with the problem on your own?  It's a very common problem that can lead to an even bigger problem. 

When we encounter a crisis and we're not grounded in our trust in God our fear and frustrations can take over and we react out of those emotions.  We get impatient for God to work.  We want our problem solved ASAP.  And as you may have noticed, God doesn't always time things the way we'd like Him to. So we try to solve our problems in our own time. 

All we really want is resolution and peace. And yes - sometimes when we take things into our own hands and get that quick resolution we think we feel peace.  But, the truth is, it's not peace we get - it's relief masquerading as peace.  True peace comes from waiting on God and trusting Him.

If we continue to respond to situations out of our impatience, over time our trust and faith in God diminishes.  Why? Because we haven't seen Him work in our lives for awhile.  He seems absent.  The problem isn't that He's absent - it's usually that we're impatient, we've ignored Him and we don't trust Him to work out the situation.

If we don't allow God the time and opportunity to work in our lives, how will we ever witness His faithfulness?  And if we don't see His faithfulness, how will we ever see and feel His loving hand upon us?  And that loving hand is where true peace comes from.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.  Psalm 28:7

We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. Psalm 33:20,21

Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord have never forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10