It's been an incredible week as we are finishing up the study The Cause Within You by Pastor Matthew Barnett of the LA Dream Center. As we've journeyed through the last eight weeks together God has done an amazing work in all of our hearts. He is definitely opening our hearts to the cause within each of us.
I'm honored to be leading this study and to have the opportunity to hear from so many about how they have been stretched or how their old dreams are coming back to life. It's also been a blessing seeing others see their cause in a new light as they've asked themselves many times "what am I supposed to be."
I am a motivator by nature. I love motivating and stretching people, because when they grow I grow. When they stretch beyond their comfort zone, I stretch. I'm weird I know, but HEY that's the way God wired me. Earlier this week I was motivating and coaching a few people. Loving every minute of it, I might add.
What's your dream?
Where do you want to be?
What's the first step?
What do you want to be?
Let's make a plan.
I felt like we were making steps toward getting focused and moving forward. As I motivated others, I was even getting more focused on my own goals and passions. I crawled into bed late one night with a smile on my face. I was pumped up for so many others. I was hopeful. I was exhausted. Then came the questions -- Am I asking too much of others? Am I pushing too hard? What are we doing? Somewhere amid all the confusion dancing in my head, I fell asleep.
Around 4am I woke up. It was one of those moments when I knew it wasn't time to roll over and throw the covers over my head; it was time to get up quietly, go straight to my journal and my Bible. Forget the morning routine. Forget the coffee. yikes!
I could feel God nudging, it was time to just sit silent and listen!
I wrote a few words in my journal, "Thank you Lord for these still moments with you and taking me to places I never dreamed of. Help me lay down my agenda and pick up YOURS." Then I went to reading with a quiet mind.
God was stirring in my heart. I wasn't really sure what, but as I dug into 1 Peter 1 it all became so clear when I got to verse 16, "Be holy, for I am holy." Be. Holy. Be. Be. Be. Holy.
It wasn't about doing. It wasn't about what we can accomplish. It wasn't even about what we want to be...because right there God tells us what we should aspire to BE . . . . . HOLY!!!
What if we had that mentality from the time we were children and when someone asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" What if we could have just answered, "I want to be holy!" WOW what a different world we would live in. How different would our hearts would be?
While it is important to listen to those desires of our heart and pursue them, if we leave God out of the journey we miss out. He gives us big dreams and passions to continually remind us that life is a journey. A journey where we will be refined and become more holy the more we keep our eyes fixed on Him as we strive forward towards our God-given dreams.
So what do you want to be?
I want to be on a journey to the holiness of God.
I just want to BE Holy.
