So…this blog has been ignored and dormant for quite some time. Off and on, I’ve thought about writing, even had some pretty profound thoughts worthy of sharing. But I never really felt God leading me to take the time to do this. Until now. Until Greater.
You see, I’m studying the book Greater by Pastor Steven Furtick with Melissa Taylor’s Online Bible Studies. So far, I’ve only read Chapter 1. There are some mind-blowing points in there about starting small, starting with what you have, being Greater WITH Jesus, not Greater THAN Jesus. Really good stuff. But not what inspired me to write.
We had our first conference call, with Pastor Steven encouraging us. He said that if we were at the point of desperation, despondence, despair and all those other “d” words, we were right where God wanted us….humbled, ready to move forward. He told us that living Greater does not always mean changing something or starting something new. Sometimes it means staying put and sticking it out with a new passion and God’s perspective. Melissa was on fire in her message to us, reminding us that the Jesus in me is the same Jesus who performed all those cool miracles…..the very same one who healed people and changed lives is in me! How awesome is that?!?! But again, not what inspired me to write.
The inspiration came Tuesday morning, when I saw all of the comments on Melissa’s blog. Woman after precious woman saying that she felt “adrift”, no purpose, at a cross-roads, going through transition….a husband who left, laid off from a job, children grown and left the nest, and not sure what to do next. It broke my heart. Call me naïve, call me Pollyanna, and yes, I do have my very own pair of rose-colored glasses. But I had no idea that so many women were walking in such defeat.
Then I remembered that I was close to being on that same path myself. This past summer, my own daughter got married. My son started his senior year of high school and will soon be out of the nest. I didn’t know it, but I was facing a major crisis of identity and transition. That’s when God led me to Melissa’s Online Bible Studies. With an increased travel load at work and the huge demands of planning the wedding of the century, I could not commit to our women’s Bible study at church, so I signed up for the OBS of Glynnis Whitwer’s book I Used to Be So Organized. I thought that was just what I needed…my house needed some de-cluttering and I thought this would be the ticket to neatly labeled containers and stylish baskets elegantly bringing order to my mess, with a few breezy spiritual lessons thrown in.
But sisters, it was oh so much more. The first several chapters are around understanding why we are chronically disorganized, why we have no time or ability to get our lives under control and how we need to set priorities. It was right there in Chapter 6 Establishing Priorities that God brought a new vision to my life that I didn’t even know I needed! Glynnis has five questions that she asks to set priorities, and she presented it in the context of being able to weed out non-priorities in your schedule to make more time for your priorities. But God used the exercise as a vehicle to establish a framework as I faced this transitional time in my life. It was eye-opening. Horizon-expanding. Inspiring. Humbling.
You can find more details on Glynnis’s five questions in her book, or on her blog by searching for the word “priorities” in her archives. Check out the Oct. 10, 2012 and Jan. 13, 2012 posts (I’m not techy enough to figure out how to link directly to the posts!) But if you are one of those women who is stuck in one of the “d’s” and craving for God to do Greater things with you, ask yourself these questions and see if they don’t help set you in the right direction:
- What can only I do?
- What has God entrusted to me?
- Am I a good steward of what I already have?
- What passion has God put in my heart?
- What has God asked me to do that I haven’t done yet?
God does have Greater plans for us than we ever could dream for ourselves. But just having a head knowledge or even a heart knowledge of that only leads to frustration. We know there is something better out there but we don’t know what it is or how to get to it. The five questions gave me the clarity of a framework…a direction to head. The Greater life that God laid out for me includes more time spent on my relationship with my husband, taking better care of the resources He has given me and moving from old areas of ministry to new ones. The following OBS of Unglued by Lysa TerKeurst gave me the confidence to fully trust that God has prepared this path for me in advance and uniquely equipped me to walk in it. And I’m praying that Greater gives me the courage to be obedient to the vision that God gave me. The one He gave when I didn’t even know I needed one. Amazing. Grace.
If you are facing a cross-roads or a transition and think that kind of framework would help you, leave a comment and I will give away a copy of I Used to Be So Organized to one commenter!
