Enjoying the journey of life with God, rather than focusing only on the destination. Finding God’s path for your life.
What Type of Path Are You On?
The saying goes that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. It might work in math but it certainly does not work in life. The distance between two points in one’s life is more like a zigzag or spiral with both ups and downs. The myth is that one can pick a point and go straight to it!
Take a sheet of paper and make a point that represents your birth. Next make a point toward the upper part of the paper that represents the present. Now begin to draw a line between the two points and consider all the events that have happened since your birth. Did you always move steadily toward where you are today? Or did you go up at times, sideways sometimes, decline at periods of time, and then some movement sidewise or upward again. Attempt to recapture your life by creating this line between your birth and today. You will find if you have been honest, that it most certainly is not a straight line.
The truth is that God never created us to move in straight lines! A straight line would quickly become a dull life and no character would be built. It is the zigzags of life that bring us into being.
Why is this important?
A common misconception by adults is that if they can pick a goal that can move straight to it. When their efforts are not successful, or in the shortness of time desired, they think that they have failed. This approach puts the emphasis upon “doing” or activities. If one can just do enough of the right activities the desired outcome will result. WRONG!
Successful and fulfilling living is not about doing (activities). It is about BEING.
We are called human beings not human doings. But most of us have forgotten this and focus on the doing part at the expense of the being.
What is the difference?
God designed us to find joy and build relationships – with Him and others. When we place the focus on doing we have created a god called activity. It consumes us and takes us away from being. Soon the spirit hungers to get out of the rat race and enjoy a vacation or rest. When false goals/gods are placed as the objective of our activity, it only serves to consume us and build false hopes and discontent. We begin to feel useless and unable to move toward happiness and joy. The challenge is in not reaching the goal, but in setting activity as the means to success. It isn’t so.
How do I know this?
One way is that as you look at the Bible you do not find it to be a book about doing. God does not fill the pages with what we should and should not do. (Yes, there are the Ten Commandments but that was when the children of Israel were babies in the wilderness. Read the rest of the Bible.) The Bible is a book about how to BE in life. With the being in place, the doing takes its proper perspective and serves the being and not the other way around. Let me say it another way. The Bible is filled with principles to build our lives upon. Matthew 7 tells us what will happen when we build our house on anything but a solid foundation. Read more about: When God is talking to you
Are you doing OR being?
I want to challenge you to evaluate the principles upon which you are living? Are they ones handed down to you? Are they ones that you picked up along the way without considering if they will build something solid for you?
If you think that the shortest distance between two points in your life is a straight line, I wonder where else you are living under false assumptions.
It is the false truths that we make our choices upon that create the hell that we find ourselves imprisoned. You and you alone are responsible for the principles we choose to live upon.
Break out of the chains and let God’s Spirit flow through all of you to bring the inner self He created to surface in the outer self you show the world. There must be only one of you to live in joy and fulfillment in this world.
Pastor Jim
Praise the lord every one ,please i would like to join in this web but in my Country i cant find it plzzz help
So true! It is the journey and not so much the destination. For while the destination is crucial – where we will go for eternity – it is the journey and “climb” that shapes us. Without it we become mundane robots.
God has moved in powerful ways in my life. I couldn’t bare to keep it all to myself – God bless