finding your passion …

“Find a need and fill it.  Find a hurt and heal it.”

I needed some guid­ance today.  Nat­u­rally, I found some­one able to pro­vide it.  You say, “What?  Did you ask God first?”  Well, yes, of course I did.  Some­times, how­ever, you need to hear the answer audi­bly.  Some­times, the answer God would give can be deliv­ered through some­one else.  That’s how the Bible was writ­ten, right?  Inspired words — writ­ten by men, com­ing from God.

I’ve been work­ing through the Sur­prise Me exper­i­ment and try­ing to get a bet­ter grasp on what I should be doing with my life and I think the def­i­n­i­tion of sur­prise is too vague.  Let me clar­ify it.  A sur­prise to a kid is like a gift or a trick played on hal­loween, some­thing unex­pected.  A sur­prise to a teen may be hear­ing from a friend they grew up with, maybe played the hal­loween tricks on, some­thing unex­pected.  (Be nice to the nerds, they may be your boss some­day!)  A sur­prise to adults sud­denly seems too unusal.  Adults don’t play with toys and by this time they have usu­ally either become reaquiainted with their child­hood frineds or the friends have become long lost in time and space.  But it’s still at it’s root some­thing unex­pected.  What sur­prises you?  I am learn­ing now that a sur­prise from God is not some­thing that you didn’t know, or some­thing you couldn’t have fig­ured out on your own, but some­thing that came at a dif­fer­ent time than you expected, or with a dif­fer­ent impor­tance.  It’s about expectations.

We expect God to be lov­ing, kind and gen­tle.  Also, He is just and wise.  He knows every­thing and knows every­where.  He can see your heart.  He can see your inten­tions.  We expect these things.  What I haven’t expected was how he would blend His traits and knowl­edge to reveal things to me about the sim­plic­ity of every­day life. Look at the lit­tle things.  Then glance at the big pic­ture.  If you look at it from the right per­spec­tive and with the right expec­ta­tions, you see that they are very sim­i­lar.  It makes it eas­ier to deal with prob­lems when you try to imag­ine why God chose for you to expe­ri­ence them.  Keep­ing in mind, of course, that we can cause enough trou­ble on our own with­out His help.  Then, when He does bring some­thing our way — a sur­prise — for bet­ter or for worse, it’s not some­thing too great for us to han­dle.  He will always make a way to escape.  Some­times I ignore the exit sign for His escape: like dri­ving at night with the head­lights off.  Turn them on and look for the sign.  You only have to stay on the high­way long enough to learn from God or give oth­ers time to learn from God, then take the next exit.  If you want to stay on and go the extra mile, there’s more to be learned.  It would be good for you and I to con­sult God’s GPS so that we can get a bet­ter idea of how to get to His des­ti­na­tion.  Some­times, it’s not a bad Idea to stop and ask for directions.

Sur­prise.

The mail­man was kind enuogh to deliver a cou­ple of books I’ve been want­ing to read.  “Blue Like Jazz” by Don­ald Miller and “Blue Col­lar God / White Col­lar God” by Terry Esau.  I’m ready to dive in.  I’ll let you know how it goes.