your joy is at stake

a kindling post

Nov 26, 2022

some kindling to help light your fire:

I was about sixty seconds too late for this photo. A minute earlier the sky was like *insert Hallelujah chorus* but I was trying to finish my row of knitting 😏 and missed it.

So here:

When the Lord tells you to move, do it. Don’t delay. Don’t put off obedience.

But also, this:

If real life has been in the way and you are feeling behind, always five minutes late to the party, doing everything you know to do but still feel like you’re missing the brightest colors…you’re not. If you are obeying, you are in the right place at the right time.

You’re just in time.

You didn’t miss the party. You might be watching the end of the sunset, but it might be tomorrow’s sunrise that blows you away.

We need His direction and clarity and perspective, and He longs to give it to us. But we have to abide — we receive from Him by being in proximity to Him.

A few ways to increase your proximity:

Read the Bible.
Memorize a verse (or three).
Ask the Spirit to help you hear Him.
Put on worship music.
Acknowledge the Lord right where you’re at - while you’re scrolling right now, doing the dishes, filing paperwork, changing a diaper, changing a tire: “God, thank You for being with me.”
My favorite: Ask God, “Give me Your words.” This is not just good for writers, speakers, and ministers who constantly need His words. It’s also good for parents, kids, friends, siblings, coworkers, employers, and everyone else...because we all need His words for ourselves, and for others.

If you’re having a hard time hearing God, run to His word.

And if you want to keep hearing Him, stay in His word.

A little bit every day. Push through. Posture yourself to hear Him, and You will. Ask Him for understanding & wisdom. He is eager for you to have them.

And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
— John 12:44-50

And one more way to hear the Lord:

Do the thing He’s already told you to do.

It’s for your good, and your joy is at stake.

You don’t have to be afraid to do the thing He told you.

We can’t expect to hear Him if we’ve continually ignored the things He’s already said to us. We train ourselves to listen by obeying.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
— John 15:12-17

What we invest our time and thoughts in will influence the way we see the world around us, so choose carefully what gets your time and attention because not everything will honor the time you give it. Not everything will give a good return; some things will take and take and begin to twist you in ways you know are less than who you were made to be.

So prioritize well. Abiding with Jesus will always give you a greater return than you imagined, and He will lead you to things that refine you in intricate, unfathomable ways.

He is Living Water on our hard surfaces. Through holy erosion sometimes He gently molds us like rain on a path, and other times He carves aggressively at cancerous growths like a raging flood.

He’s right there with you, so let Him have His way. Your joy is at stake, and you will love who He makes you.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
— Philippians 1:9-11

The Lord knows the things you’re holding back.

When you felt too small, too quiet, too tired to put yourself out there, He heard you.

He knows the prayer request that was too sensitive to share.

He knows the burden you don’t want to unload onto others.

He knows the dream that seems too wild and unreasonable, and He knows you can’t stop thinking about it but you’re too afraid to tell others yet about it.

Sometimes we need to be quiet about things for a while. And sometimes we need to be brave and share.

It’s important that we decide between the two based on what He tells us, and not just what seems most comfortable.

He is your support and wisdom and comfort and provider either way.

What you produce isn’t supposed to look like what everyone else produces.

God designed you differently on purpose. No one else can do exactly what He made you to do in the way He made you to do it.

So make sure you are doing it. 🤍

Don’t shrink back in anxiety or worry about what others will think. Don’t be hindered by the expectations of others that would keep you small, limited, and less than what He’s been prompting you about. Stay humble but move boldly as you abide, keeping short accounts with the Holy Spirit as you move forward in constant communion and obedience.

You can trust Him to lead you well. He loves your closeness and brave, joyful, tentative steps forward.

But if He’s nudging you to be brave, He might want to do those things through someone else so you can see the answer and breakthrough right in front of you.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed[…]work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
— Philippians 2:12-13

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