Trusting God

Imagine if every painting in the world only consisted of different shades of your favorite color. What if every painter only used his favorite color in his pallet? All painting would simply be blue, or red, or green. There would be a lack of definition and character. I certainly have my favorite colors. I also have colors that I don’t prefer. Most likely, a beautiful portrait will include both colors that I like and also colors I don’t necessarily prefer in order to make the picture complete.

God is painting an amazing portrait with our lives. It’s easy to be afraid when we see brush strokes on the canvas of colors that we don’t like. It’s really easy to say, “this isn’t what I want!” or ask “why is He using that color?”. However, the Lord sees the final image in His mind. If we will choose to trust Him with the “color palette”, we one day look at the final product of of lives and behold a masterpiece that only the Lord could have painted.

If you don’t understand something that is happening in your life right now, step back for a moment, take a deep breath and say the words, “I don’t have to figure this out.” Let the tight feeling in your chest begin to go away and let your heart relax from it’s tension.

God has purpose in the situation that you currently don’t understand. You can trust Him.

“But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” - Jeremiah 17:7-8

David Olinger

Mirrors

Every bathroom in my world has mirrors. Every vehicle I drive has no less than 5 mirrors in it. This means that between my home, office and daily travel (virtually all hours of every day), there is always an opportunity for me to focus on myself or on the things behind me.

While mirrors can be helpful, especially if there is something hanging where it shouldn’t be, mirrors can also be detrimental. Too much time focused on all of the things we don’t like about ourselves or the things behind us that we cannot change is a dangerous distraction from our destiny.

Our natural lives are surrounded by mirrors and the enemy repeatedly gives us opportunities to stare into his “thought mirrors.” His thought mirrors are intended to get us fixated on similar things - ourselves or our past.

Just as every driver of a vehicle must spend far more time looking forward through their windshield than they do staring in their mirrors in order to stay on course and reach their destination, every believer must spend far more time seeing and beholding God than staring at anything else. Anything more than an occasional glance in the mirror is dangerous to driver, passengers and others on the road. Likewise, any thought fixation on fears, what if’s, past failures, or selfishness will cause a wreck somewhere.

Reaching our destination without wrecking our ministry and personal lives means gazing at the Son regularly.

“Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.” Prov 4:25

“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb 12:2

Jesus reached His destination without wrecking because He beheld His Father regularly and set His gaze on the joy in front of Him, not the pain of the moment, the wounds of the hateful or the betrayal of former friends in His past.

A glance of thankfulness at what is behind us is healthy. A glance at what God has done in us is also healthy. The mirrors in our lives should reflect the transformation of sons and daughters who are loved, adopted and set free to follow the Son through the wind-shield of our life.

-Matt Peterson

In Three Words

Much can be said in three words. So simple and yet so profound.

After the crucifixion of Jesus - Peter felt lost. Humiliated at how he had indeed betrayed his teacher and friend, Peter lost hope. It’s funny how when you loose hope in one area of your life - all the rest of your hope leaks out of that hole.

We’ve all been in that place at one time or another - not sure where to go or what to do. Peter went back to what he did before he walked with Jesus. He went back to fishing for fish. Nothing else seemed to make sense, until a seaside breakfast meeting.

You remember the story (John 21), Peter and several of the disciples decide to go night fishing. They fish all through the night, but don’t have a single catch. As the sun is coming up a man on the shore calls out a tip, “Throw your net on the other side and you’ll get some!” They decide to try it and are amazing when the net gets so full they wonder if it will break.

All of the sudden, they realize that man is Jesus! This is the third time he’s appeared to them since he was raised from the dead - and he’s cooking breakfast for them. Can you imagine Jesus cooking and serving you breakfast? Wow.

So you know what happens next - the conversation between Jesus & Peter.Jesus: “Do you love me?

Peter: “Yes, you know I love you.” (Repeat 2 x’s)

Jesus responds to Peter - “Feed my lambs”, “Take care of my lambs”, “Feed my sheep”.

Even in just those last three words - it sums up Peter’s purpose and direction for the rest of his life. Simple? Yes. Profound? Yes. Life changing? Yes.

Jesus is still talking today. Do you need some direction? Curious about your life purpose? Life might not be as complicated as we think. Ask Him for three words to give you that mission and clarity. He can do it and you might just be amazed at what he says!

-Wendy Horvath