Faith = Letting Go

Have you ever noticed how desperately we want to hang on to what we know and avoid the unknown? It’s funny how the unknown scares most of us so badly that we will avoid it at almost any cost.

Think about the people of Israel as they left Egypt. They would rather return to the slavery of Egypt, with conditions they knew, than have the freedom of the Promised Land and conditions they did not know.

If you and I are going to become people of faith who accomplish all we were designed for then we must learn to let go of the familiar and trust God to have everything under His control. Read Hebrews 11 and you’ll see that’s what every one of those people of faith were commended for. They trusted God to do what only He could do, to the extent they acted without any backup plan in case it didn’t work out.

My paraphrases of Matthew 16:25 goes like this: Jesus tells us that if we want to live our lives so that we have everything under control then we will end up miserable and missing out on really living at all. That person simply exists to die and be buried. But, if we’re willing to trust God and pursue His plan for our lives then we will find great fulfillment and satisfaction in doing what our Creator designed us for.

Twelve men saw Jesus walking on water. One of those twelve asked Jesus if he could join Him walking on the water. Jesus told Him to come on out, and Peter got out of the boat and walked on water. Eleven other men sat in the safety of the boat, never taking the risk and daring to step out and walk on water.

How about you? Are you going to sit in the boat or are you going to get out and take a risk?

Is taking the risk scary? You bet! But you’ll never walk on water until you get out of the boat.

Go for It!

After writing Chips and Soda I got to thinking about how often people tell others what God wants them to do. I remember years back when a well meaning Christian lady told me I was supposed to quit my job and become a preacher. Another time an evangelist told me that I should become an evangelist. People also told me that I should not pursue a degree in engineering.

Today’s thought is; stop settling for the chips and soda of someone else’s dream for your life and focus on God’s plan for your life.

I have come to realize a very simple fact: God designed each person to be unique. He made no duplicates. Each of us has a unique purpose by our Creator’s very design. I cannot do what God designed you to do, and you cannot do what God designed me, or any other person, to do.

Deep in our soul is a longing and a dream, placed there by God Himself. That longing calls us to be something and to do something significant. I believe that longing is always something huge, something that we could never accomplish on our own. That longing and that dream require us to come into a relationship with our Creator in order for the dream to become a reality. The dream can only become a reality when our Creator and Designer becomes our focus, because the dream will ultimately bring credit not to us but to our Creator. That dream will scare you half to death because, although you would love to do it, you can’t see how it could ever happen. It is simply too much, it is too big, for you.

That’s the point! You must have God for the dream to become reality! And you must let go of doing what you can do on your own and learn to trust almighty God to make the impossible a reality. It’s called becoming a person of faith!

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith we cannot please God. Mark 8:35 tells us that if we try to life our lives for our own gratification we will be miserable. But if we will live our lives for the glory of Jesus we will find real meaning and fulfillment. Joshua 1:8 tells us that if we want to be prosperous and successful we must read and obey God’s Word. Matthew 6:33 tells us if we will make God’s purposes our focus we will find real fulfillment and satisfaction.

So here is the challenge. If we are going to find what we really want in life we are going to have to change our focus from simple pleasures, possessions, and prestige to living out the purpose for which our Designed and Creator made us. It’s too big for us to accomplish on our own. That’s the point! We must get to know our Creator, learn to trust Him and trust His plans for our lives, and then step out of our comfort zone to accomplish the impossible dream He has put in our soul. In Luke 18:27 Jesus told us that things which are impossible with people are possible with God.

Will you attempt the impossible? Will you live for something really big? Will you let go of doing things your way and live out the dream that is in your soul? Will you tap into the full potential God gave you to accomplish something really significant for His glory, and in the process find the purpose for your life?

Well, will you? If so, what are you waiting for?

Chips and Soda

Have you ever noticed how we seem to overlook so many passages of the Bible?

I have a theory about that: We get so absorbed about the gems of truth that someone else has discovered that we forget to go look for gems on our own.

It’s as though we get so caught up admiring the gold nuggets that someone else found that we totally forget to go digging for gold nuggets for ourselves, and the result is we stay poor while our friend who found the nuggets becomes fabulously wealthy.

Here is an example: A few years ago a book titled “The Prayer of Jabez”, based on 1 Chronicles 4:10, became a best seller. Preachers all over the place preached sermons on The Prayer of Jabez, and countless people prayed The Prayer of Jabez. I wonder how many people were disappointed because what happened to Jabez never happened to them. It must have been a lot, because had what Jabez prayed happened in the lives of even a small percentage of those people who bought the book, it should have changed America.

What if those people, instead of praying The Prayer of Jabez, had gone searching for golden nuggets of their own? What if a small percentage of Christians began searching for God’s plan for their own lives, discovered that plan, and experienced the thrill of almighty God working in their lives?

Please understand that I’m in no way criticizing Christian books. There are many fine books out there, and I have personally benefited from many of them. However, we cannot, we must not, let them become a substitute for God’s Word.

This is the trap people fall into. We substitute the pre-digested for the real thing. It’s like eating chips and drinking soda when you’re hungry. Those things give an immediate high, but the high doesn’t last.

I encourage everyone to read books by good Christian authors. But don’t allow that reading to take away from your time of reading the Bible. Don’t substitute reading about God for reading the Word of God.

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8 (ESV)

How successful do we want to be?

Creativity Killers

I’ve been thinking lately about all the rules and policies I have written over the year. It seems that at each place where I have worked I have had the task of setting up policies and procedures in order to bring some sense of order out of all the chaos.

Now I’m sure that some of those policies and procedures were good and necessary. But I wonder how much creativity has been stifled in the process.

I remember working at one place where the controller insisted that you put only one staple in the top right corner of an expense reports. The first time I turned in an expense report I had stapled all the receipts together, (one staple) and then stapled that to the expense report (two staples). The controller rejected it and made me use only one staple. Now that man was a control freak!

I have worked at a number of companies which were required to get certified to various quality standards in order to do business. Such certification involves documenting everything which could impact the customer’s product, whether it were quality, reliability, delivery, cost, or anything else. You can imagine the thousands of pages of documentation, and the tens of thousands of man hours such a task involves.

Here is something I have learned from that process: Rules destroy creativity. The fewer rules you can get by with the better off you are.

This is doubly true when working with volunteers. Volunteers and rules is almost a contradiction.

Rules are for paid staff. You get to set rules for them because you pay them for their time.

Volunteers serve because they get to use their creativity. Take away their ability to use their God-given talents and you take away their reason for volunteering.

So ask yourself this question: Do I want my volunteers to use their God-given skills and abilities? If the answer is “Yes” then you must stop trying to control them.

Loosen the controls and let your volunteers fly! Let their God-given creativity boost your ministry beyond your wildest expectations!

But remember: you’re not doing this for yourself. No! You’re doing this for the glory of God!

Trip to Sudan

It is now only days until David Rodriguez, John de Leon, and I leave for Sudan. God has been so good to us. All the funds are in, David and John have their shots, but I don’t. However, I do have most of the stuff that I’ll need to take with me. Part of that is Christy’s suitcases which never got to her.

Here is our schedule:
We leave Brownsville on Tuesday, February 2, at 11:00 a.m. and fly to Houston. Flight time is 1:19.
We leave Houston at 4:25 p.m. and fly to Amsterdam. Flight time is 9:05.
We have 2:10 to get to our next gate and catch the next flight to Entebe. Flight time is 8:00.
We stay at Entebe overnight and then on Thursday we catch a short hop to Kajo Keji.

David and John return the following week, arriving back in Brownsville at 7:19 p.m. on February 11th.

I’ll be staying on and teaching at the Kajo Keji Bible School for a week, leaving there on February 16th, and then I’ll be accompanying Christy on her much needed R&R to Kampala and Entebe. On February 23 Christy will head back to Kajo Keji and I fly back to US, arriving in Brownsville on the 24th.

Please keep us all in your prayers. Your prayers make the difference! Your prayers push back the forces of evil. Please pray for us!

If you drop me a note at jimsteenland@gmail.com I’d be glad to send you the team prayer calendar.

Some Trivia, Just for Fun

Did you know that bees fly in swarms, ants live in colonies, whales swim in pods, fish swim in schools, cows wander in herds, a group of lions is a prides, crows fly in murders, a group of tigers is an ambush, a group of owls is a parliament, a group of flamingos is a flamboyant, a group of Rhinos moving together at full speed is called a crash, and a group of vultures gathered around a dead carcass is called a committee.

Hmm. I must admit that last one gets me. I’m still trying to understand why so many churches have committees.

Letting Go of the Safety Lines

I've been reading a book titled The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus. I'd like to recommend you get a copy and read it. The book really resonated with me because much of what he says is what God has been teaching me over the past few months, or even years. For example:

"... to follow Christ is to abandon the luxury of safety and security. If we are to be like Him, we must always risk for love. We are invited to follow Him with reckless abandon. The call of God is more than a leap of faith; it is a life of faith. Even when it seems beyond our abilities, we should not be surprised when God calls us to jump."

I'm tired of living a life of safety because I have discovered my soul always longs for something more. Safety is mediocrity, average, the norm, and it's totally boring. We were not designed to live boring lives.

Let's let go of the safety lines, trust God completely, and launch out to accomplish the impossible dream that lies deep in our soul, longing to be freed so that we can accomplish what our Creator designed us for.

Is it scary? You bet!
Is it worth it? It is more than worth it! It is exhilarating beyond words!

God's Plan - Specific and Intentional

   
God has given me a passion to help people discover God’s plan for their life.

I want to help people discover God’s plan for their lives so that they will enjoy the fulfillment and satisfaction that only comes when we are doing what our Designer created us to do. God created each of us as unique individuals, with no duplicates. Why? Because each of us has a unique calling by God to accomplish something specific that only we can do perfectly.

Like pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle, each human is unique and has a specific place in God’s plan where only they fit perfectly. No other human can do what you were designed to do. They may do it, but they won’t do it as well. They may do it, but not with the same degree of satisfaction and enjoyment. It’s a lot of fun to read history and see how true that really is. There has never been another Moses, or King David, or Apostle Paul. Nor has there ever been another Mozart, Michael Angelo, or Abraham Lincoln. No other person can do what God designed you to do, and neither can you do what God designed someone else to do.

What is your passion? What has God designed you to do?

Perhaps you’re wasting your time trying to become someone else, and in the process you’re just getting frustrated. You will never be truly fulfilled and satisfied until you are doing what your Creator designed you to do. So pursue finding God’s plan for your life! Stop wasting your time trying to do what others tell you to do. Get alone with your Creator and ask Him what He designed you for. He wants to tell you! He designed you for that very purpose! Nothing in more important to Him than for you to discover His plan for your life!

But hang on just a minute. It’s scary. In fact, it’s terrifying! Why? Because it’s huge! Your Creator’s plan for your life is something so big and so spectacular that it’s impossible for you to accomplish or achieve it on your own. And that’s the point. That’s part of the plan. It’s so big you can’t do it without God’s help!

God’s plan is for us to turn to Him to discover His plan for our lives, find it impossible and terrifying, and then rely on His power in our lives to carry out His plan. Then, when we see God do the impossible in our lives we have a story to tell the world. The result is that the world will see what God has done, and not what we have done, and they will give God the glory and praise.
  

Choices

As we step into a brand new year, and a brand new decade, may I challenge you to take a huge step? May I challenge you to let go of past hurts? May I challenge you to leave them in the past year and refuse to take them with you into the new year and into the new decade?

Many of us have been wronged. And those wrongs keep coming up and haunting us. We want to see those wrongs made right! We want to set the record straight! We want those who gossiped to be exposed so that everyone knows how much of a trash-talker they are! We want people to know the truth about those hypocrites who promised to keep a secret and then told others, and they didn’t even tell the truth but instead told a twisted lie! We want people to know how we were wronged and hurt! We’re tired of carrying around the pain of people looking at us as though we were the ones who did something wrong! And maybe most of all, we want our friends who turned against us to know the truth, and we’d like for them to finally feel some shame for rejecting us when we needed them the most!

We are hurting inside and no matter how much we try we can’t get over it. It’s like a constant dripping of acid that keeps eating away at our insides. It burns our stomach, it eats at our heart, and it keeps playing over and over in our minds until all we can think about is how unfair it is and how nice it would be to set the record straight.

Have I just described you? Actually, I just described me. I also described people I love very much. Here is what I have found helpful to deal with the pain and anger.

I have to make a conscious decision that I’m not going to continue living with that baggage. I have to force my mind to focus on other things. The Bible tells us in Philippians 3:13 to forget our past and focus on the future. How do I force myself to focus on the future? I have found memorizing Bible verses to be the greatest help. Here are some that gave me a great starting point: Philippians 4:8; Joshua 1:8-9; Psalm 119:11; Jude 1:24; Romans 8:1; Romans 8:37-39; Romans 8:32.

I also found two friends whom I call and ask to pray for me. These men will never repeat what I tell them.

And finally, I write it on a piece of paper and then tell God that I’m tired of carrying around this baggage. I read it out loud to God, telling Him that I recognized that His Son Jesus paid the price for me to be free from that hurt, and that I’m giving it to Him so that I don’t have to carry it any longer. I then burn that piece of paper, and as the paper burns up I tell myself that I’m free from that pain.

From that point on when that hurt comes to mind I remind myself that I’ve taken care of it and that I’m moving forward. Then I go back to quoting the Bible verses that I’ve memorized. If it still won’t go away I call my friends and have them pray with me.

Romans 8:37 (NLT) "despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us."

My prayer is that you will make the choice to leave your hurts in the past and not bring them with you into this new year.

Happy New Year!

Good bye 2009 and welcome 2010!

So, what am I going to do different in 2010?

Let’s be real clear here. I am not talking about New Year’s resolutions. What I am talking about is planning. I’m talking about laying out a workable plan so that at the end of 2010 I will have accomplished a goal that is important enough for me to focus on it all year long. I’m talking about doing something that will make me a better person at the end of this year.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about: When some Sadducees asked Jesus about marriage relationships in heaven, Jesus told them that they were mistaken because they neither understood the Scriptures nor the Power of God (Matthew 22:29).

A lot of us have that same problem today; we don’t understand the Scriptures nor do we understand the Power of God.

If we truly understood the Scriptures, and if we truly understood the Power of God, we would not mess around and tolerate a lot of things we do. We would say “No” to a lot of the things in our lives that cause us to miss out on God’s greater plans for us. We’d stop messing around in sin like children playing around in mud.

Our problem is that we buy into the devils lie that we can have fun messing around with sin, and then still enjoy a meaningful relationship with God. That’s the same lie the devil told Eve to get her to eat the fruit. Won’t we ever learn? Until we are willing to turn away from our sinful behavior we will never fully enjoy a relationship with a holy, pure, and perfect God.

In Matthew 17 we read the story of how Jesus’ disciples were unable to cast out a demon. This must have been terribly embarrassing for them, to fail in front of a whole crowd. Jesus saves the day when He comes to the scene and casts out the demon. Later the disciples asked Jesus why they had failed, and Jesus tells them that this kind of demon only goes out with prayer and fasting. What Jesus was saying is that if we want more of God’s power in our life we must first spend time with God and we must get rid of those things that become distractions to our growing and becoming mature children of God.

So, how about it? Do you want more of God’s power in your life? Do you want to become a person of faith who doesn’t settle for a measly life of mediocrity? Are you willing to let go of anything that is holding you back from stepping out and attempting huge things for God’s kingdom?

We will never live life to the fullest and be truly satisfied and fulfilled until we say yes to those questions.

And where does it all start? It starts by coming to grips with understanding the Scriptures and understanding the Power of God. If we miss these two points we will never begin to grasp the wonderful plan God has for our lives.