Heart Tracks - Around The Corner?

"But the Lord said, 'Go and do what I say, for Saul is My chosen instrument to take My message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for Me.' " Acts 9:16......"Or perhaps we have all sourced hope in the possible realization of dreams tomorrow instead of the certain presence of God today. Personally, how do I stay healthy when my dreams are delayed? By working to ensure that my soul's address for hope is in God and His love for me. My hope is sourced in His love today not the materialization of my dreams tomorrow. My hope is rooted in His Company not in my scenery......I do not have to 'hold for what's right around the corner' because Jesus is always holding me in this moment today." Alicia Britt Chole

It's so common here in the western Church to put forth the outlook that our futures are filled with wondrous possibilites. That God has a "wonderful plan" for our lives, families and ministries. That He means to fulfill our destinies, and bring to pass all our dreams and visions. If this is not happening, we generally have two responses. The first is to blame the person themselves. They must not have had enough faith. Their vision was too small. They did not have a deep enough prayer life, or worst of all, they must have had some hidden sin in their lives. Such a response does nothing but tear one down. The second is little better, and indeed, may be even worse. In the face of loss or unrealized dreams and hopes, we tend to tell the person that they just need to look up, because the Lord has something better, "just around the corner." A new door, an even better result. It's not far off at all, and we need to be looking for and expecting it. I believe in living in a spirit of expectation. Expectation though of Him, not of what I expect Him to do. If our expectations are centered on results, what do we do when the results are not coming about? What do we do when the "corner" we've heard so much about, gets further and further away each day? What happens when all our visible hope has dissolved, and we are left with the only real hope we ever had? God Himself. This is the story of all the great heroes of faith. From Moses through David, to Paul, down to us, it is Christ and Christ alone who is our Hope. Why is that so hard for us? Why does is seem that Christ alone is just not enough?

As Chole says, you and I spend so much time focused on what we want to come about tomorrow, that we miss the sweet and overwhelming joy of His presence in our life today. We are so centered on achieving something, getting somewhere, that we miss out on the wonder of His love, joy, and presence. Most of all, it really becomes all about us, and very little about Him......Let's go a step further. How many of us would welcome the message that Ananias brought to Saul of Taursus shortly after his Damascus road conversion experience? The Father made clear that He had a destiny for him, but that destiny would be entered into through a long pathway of suffering, pain, and yes, delay. This kind of promise is not the type we wish to receive from Him. It doesn't look like success, or prosperity, or abundance....to our flesh. It does look like such to Him. We'll sign up to speak to kings any time. Paul would do so, but he'd be in chains when he did. That's not a destiny we're seeking. That's not what we expect to be just around the corner. To what are we holding today, and what holds us? Is our hope founded in what we hope He has for us around the corner, or what He is for us right where we are? Do we look for some dream or vision that more often than not has proceeded from our own heart and not His...... or Christ and Christ alone?

Too many of us are either living in the captivity of the past, or in some notion, vague or not, of what we want the future to be. I believe in dreams and visions, but only if they are His. Yet even in these, they are not where we are to live. We're to live in the Father's "now," with Him. Is that where we're living? Whatever your now may be, whatever it may look like to you and those who look on, do you hold to what it appears to be, or to who He is, and what He says and has said in the midst of it? Don't live for what is just around the corner. Live for and with Him.....now.

Blessings,
Pastor O