I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the idea of having a clear vision of one’s identity and I have come to the conclusion that our minset must be shifted if we are to properly gain an understanding of who we are. These thoughts have been comprised from several years of life experiences that have been relatively insightful to my current perspective on life.
It has been said before that our highest level of disappointment comes when our expectations are not met. We tend to do many things, setting high bars of expectation, without actually checking to make sure these expectations are right and acceptable before the Good and Holy God. We fall in love, then ask God to bless our marriages. Did we give Him our heart to begin with? We embark on a new business venture, expecting Him to bless it because we are promising to give a measly ten percent. We pick and choose different career paths in our life, without really asking Him what it is that we are to do with our lives. Is this the proper way to live? I think not, my friends!
Let me mid-preface this writing by saying that these conclusions are stated by me, and I only state them with the intention of putting myself on the gallows, as I take full responsibility for these actions. In addition, I would hate to make a blanket statement for all of mankind when I have not done nearly enough market research to draw such bold conclusions. So, I throw my heart, career, poor choices, and stubborn personality on the proverbial altar for the sake of this post. I have been a terrible human being at some points of my life. And there are no apologies to be made for past actions that will in some way erase them from happening.
Let’s begin.
Here I am. This is August 25th, 2010. If things had gone the way I’d planned them to be, life would be quite different. See, when I was younger it seemed like a great age to get married at the age of 23. When I began pursuing business ventures, I hoped to make my first million by that point. Neither of these have happened and I can thank God they have not.
Perspective should come not from what we see and want, but what we lay before God, with the hopeful expectation He will provide our eyes with clarity and lives with the vision to move forward. A life surrendered to God is one that is fully invested with the Creator of the universe — an investment well-spent!
Questions to ask:
Can the One who created my mind know best the way we should apply it?
Is the Author of Love capable of understanding our desire to love/be loved?
Is it safe and smart to surrender our rights to the idea of crafting our own future, in exchange for receiving what God has in store for us instead?
Well, it would only make sense that because God Is…that He can be trusted with every single detail of our life. I’ve joked before that we do not often go out to eat and pray for vision and guidance on what type of meal to order. However, it would not be out of the picture to think that God would know our appetite better than we can. If God can be trusted to replace out original order of bologna with the finest prime cuts, it seems fitting that He can take our broken lives and piece them together into His picture of perfection.
Sometimes there are a lot of things which jump out of the woodwork to haunt me about the life I’ve lived up to this point. There are many things I’m not proud to have done. However, if I am unwilling to take on the forgiveness of our Heavenly Father, fully realizing and accepting His eternal grace and forgiveness, it cheapens and weakens the ability of God to forgive us.
I do not point to others and throw rocks at their lives, thinking that I somehow can know how to live their life better than they do. It’s not my decision. What I do know is that I stand in this world as a forgiven and broken individual, who has been lovingly pieced together by the Creator of the universe. It is through His redemption that I boldly proclaim Him as the core of my identity, with full knowledge this human life and body is but a temporary shell in the halls of eternity.
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