i choose an adventurous life of living with urgency

i've been reminded lots this week of a message we heard in church last week. sidenote:we are definitely still in the process of finding a home church, but thankfully it's taken the step from casual sunday visits to seeing if there is a place for us to connect. it was about living life with urgency.and not the flustered kind that we conjure up when we are unprepared, but the life-giving kind that guides, directs & often times changes our steps. it spoke to the deep places of my heart. it was like the Lord was telling me that i wasn't insane after all. help me discover that our life does indeed have a calling, an urgent one to follow where & what the Lord is asking of us. there's a powerful peace in that.

the pastor actually talked about noah and how he had been divinely warned way ahead of time hebrews 11:7. noah was given a glimpse of the future...im sure that noah would have rather had the flood come sooner than it did, but he still trusted in the Lord's timing & faithfulness. i think the Lord has given most, if not all, of us a glimpse of our future at some point. but maybe we've dismissed it or have lost touch with that life. but why? we should all live our lives with an urgency to serve the Lord...even if we must be like noah & wait 100 years until it comes to pass. but in order to get there you have to ask yourself some real questions...hard, eye-opening, heart-examining questions.

are you becoming who you are suppose to become-so you can do what you are called to do?
noah decided it was more important to save his family than to listen to other's gossip and ignorant uninformed comments of his doings. he knew he was called to be in the world building that boat but with a heavenly mindset on glorifying the Lord. i think that lifestyle made his family respect him more and be willing to go along with him in the end. cause don't you think that during those boys younger years they too didn't have the same faith their father did. so if you want to use family as an excuse as to why you aren't becoming that person, find a new excuse people.

are you living in & being fueled by God's grace...or are you still relying on comparison to motivate you to get things done?
if noah had looked at the others around him & asked the WHY ME question...well, there wouldn't have been an ark. if he had looked at enoch and realized that enoch just ascended into the heavens, yet there he was year after year building that ark & waiting, he would have grown discouraged. and while i know noah was human and i'm sure he had his times of weakness & discouragement, in the end, noah chose to be fueled by God's amazing grace-not the worldly equivalent of comparison. that's real folks. we have to chose every day, even multiple times a day. there are charts to compare our kids on. tests in schools. jobs. salaries. houses. cars. boats. clothes. the list can go on & on. but when we securely live in grace, we tend to not notice or let those things hold power over us.

think of it this way...comparison holds power over us & holds us down. grace fuels us & pushes us forward. i prefer to not to allow myself to be held down, how about you?

comparison               us

           us                    grace

what adjustments are you making in order to make room to live the life God has asked of you?
first things first...it's a process & it doesn't just happen overnight. i mean noah waited more than i lifetime, but the grace reward that he received in the end was more than worth it don't you think? having his family safe & sound is pretty awesome...plus he was able to actually prove all the haters wrong. ok, back to the process...check it out, jeremiah 1:10 says:

"uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow, to build and plant. "

yes, that's a lot of steps and only 1 of them is something that we like to do. you can't have one planting without the other uprooting and vice versa. pruning is a necessary evil & the Lord does all things with purpose. i can say after several years we are finally in a place of building again. let that be a testimony of God's faithfulness, that you can make it through all of these things and still love the Lord & be in a good place.

everyone around you is screaming "NO! DON'T DO IT! YOU'RE CRAZY!" ...but in your heart you can't shake it?! 
if noah had listened to all the nay-sayers, disbelievers & haters, he literally would have drowned. if he had decided that those people were certainly right, he would have missed out big time! he may even have argued that he didn't have supplies, help or knowledge to build an ark, but guess what...the Lord provided.  for most of my life, i feel like i've met some version of this-the world trying to drown me, to drown out the whispers of the Lord in my heart. i've been discouraged. i've doubted. i've even tried to abandon the call of my heart and listen to those around me. well, as i'm sure you know, God doesn't take no for an answer. so hear this, remember that time in high school or college or at a worship night at church last year when you said, "God use me...use me in whatever way you can." yeah, He's a knocking on that door. when you beg God to use you as a tool to touch people, ya don't get to ask or give preference of how he chooses to do so. God is the potter & you are the clay. if the potter chooses to use the clay to make a bowl, who is the clay to ask to be a bowl. yes, the Lord does know the desires of our heart & won't use us in ways that we won't work. but maybe if it's seeming too hard, the Lord is just wanting you to trust him more.

as humans, we all want the good in life...but it's never as sweet with out the hard work & sometimes heart break. but choosing to live a life of urgency after God brings a much sweeter reward. so now, i ask you, are you living a life of urgency?