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Getting ahead of yourself

A few weeks ago I preached at the six:thirty, our evening service here at Gateway. My talk was about having faith in God, and I used/borrowed/stole some ideas from a Rob Bell talk where he identifies 3 things the Israelites were taught by God in their Exodus from Egypt. The three things were…

1 - they had to trust God for food/provision for one day and one day only.

2 - God would only give them one step at a time in terms of guidance.

3 - on the journey, relationships would undergo trial and turmoil.

I’ll be honest, I enjoyed working on and delivering this talk. It’s here if anyone wants to have a listen.

Anyway, people were very positive in their feedback, and I was feeling pretty good about myself… until a few days ago when God basically made me realise (wasn’t exactly a painless process!) that I’ve pretty much got the rest of my life mapped out. I knew exactly what I’d be doing in 1 year, knew fairly well what I’d be doing in 5 years, and could give a good guess what I’d be doing in 20 years time. Hmm… not exactly the same as the Israelites who followed a cloud and a pillar of fire whenever it moved. Sometimes it moved every day, sometimes it stayed for months at a time. Whenever it moved they moved, whenever it stopped they camped.

So I’ve decided to throw my plan out of the window and start again from scratch. I still have hopes and dreams for the future and there are things that God has laid on my heart, but the plan has gone.

We’re now in that very scary place (but a scary place that feels right) of not having a clue what is next. We’re asking God to show us the next step and, in the meantime, trying to serve and love Him and others with everything we have.

It’s not a comfortable or a secure place, but in my experience comfort and security breed mediocrity and take the excitement out of life.