More thwarting
OK so I told you there would be more on the thwarting thing. Why then would I wake up at 4am this morning and not be able to go back to sleep? Hmmmm....I wonder. Try as I may, my mind raced and I kept saying "What is it Lord? What are you trying to tell me?" Very clearly, I felt the answer was "Get up and get in Me." So, here I am.

My desire for sleep is thwarted! God wants time alone with me and sometimes posting on this blog is the best way I can articulate my thoughts to God. So I will ramble a bit again this morning...bear with me.

The "big" story and the "small" story - John Eldredge does such a good job of laying out that our lives are part of a much bigger story. Much goes on around us and we are characters in the great play of life. I struggle with this issue with our children. Very often we will explain to them that life isn't about them. As teenage girls, they have a hard time grasping that at times - they are conditioned by TV, friends and this world that life very much is all about them. Our world conditions all of us to this point. Look at ads in any magazine or on any TV channel...its all about you. "You too can possess the American dream..."

Our sin nature drives us to self-centeredness. Our children struggle with that - all children do. From very early on in their lives we teach them it is all about them. And as teenagers, we try to undo that by telling them "Life isn't about you!" (is it any wonder we all wind up in therapy?) As young babies and toddlers, we fawn all over them desiring to meet their every need and every desire. That plays right into the sin nature they are born with. That is perpetuated through their teenage years and on into college - it is all about pursuing their dreams and goals and ambitions.

As adults, we struggle with it. As Christians, we struggle with it. No matter how hard we try, we seem to always make the story circle back to ourselves. I do it all the time. I give a talk at church and immediately I want to ask my wife or someone else, "How did I do?" I prepare a presentation for work and labor to make it as good as I possibly can so that it will set me apart. I argue points in a conversation with family or friends or business associates and deep down, it is about me trying to win my points. Do you see?

I have had a glimmer of liberation in this just this week. I had to give a talk this week for business. I labored hard in preparing my remarks and Power Point and was ready to go. It was going to be another "See how good I can make Richard look in front of other people" talk. And then, I changed course. I really think God laid all these teachings on thwarting to culminate around this talk this week. He hit me with the same message 3-4 times in the past three weeks as a lead into this talk. I see that now.

I was asked to make a presentation and for the first time I can remember, I shifted my focus from being on me to being on the audience. I believe strongly and passionately about what it is I wanted to say. I laid out my points like a lawyer ready to argue his case. But what God nudged me toward was putting myself into the lives of the recipient. They asked me for my opinion and I had it to give but God wanted me to make this talk about the folks in the audience - not me.

I had something to share. It was well prepared, well thought out but my acclaim ended right there. I did what I was asked to do - "Come and tell us what you think". I put myself in mode of God saying, "Go tell them what you think - they need it, they've asked for it...fill their need".

It was incredibly freeing and liberating to just give the talk, lay out what it was I felt led to say and then leave the room. I didn't need to stand around and subtly encourage the "Great talk" comments. Frankly and very truthfully, I didn't want them. This talk simply wasn't about me. It was about them. Their goals, their dreams, their desires. When I shifted my focus from me and my small story, I immediately entered into the big story.

Again, from the last post, there is nothing wrong with dreams, goals or desires but when they play themselves out in "our" story and not as a part of the "big' story, we digress from God and He will thwart us to pull us back toward Him. The small story is our story. We can live our whole life in that small story - providing for our family, building our business, paying off our mortgage, constructing our retirement and accomplishing our life goals. We can do all of that and lead a pretty good life but if we do all that ignoring the big story, we are missing out on the "more".

God promises so much more. "The glory of God is man fully alive". Fully alive means living in the big story - His story.

Its all about you Lord. Its all about you.

Soar!