Motivate me!
Spring, a season - tradition has it - synonymous with new life, new jobs, new challenges, new relationships - and all other kinds of sparkly fresh stuff, defrosting nicely with the thawing of the winter chill.With the imminent onset of spring here in London (I hope - it's rather cold outside!), I've got a load things quietly stirring in my heart - questions about my purpose, my job, where to serve the church - those questions I end up regularly asking, each time that I'm reminded that I'm now 'a man'! At the same time, I'm also aware of several others - either "between jobs", finishing university or starting relationships - asking the same question: "where do I fit?"
"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." Pv 16:9
Most people - when trying to find a process to find some answers will start with the "what do you love doing?" test, swiftly followed by asking around the wisest people they know, then a fair amount of prayer, fasting and searching the scriptures for words of guidance. At the end of which, they'll either have come to a desision - or be still sitting on their bottoms waiting for 'the Lord to open a door'.
It's this latter result I'm feeling closest to. What can a man do, when - quite frankly - he can't be bothered?! What do you do when apathy, boredom, lack-of-options/too-many-options and the feeling that whatever you do is doomed to either mediocrity or complete failure, adds up to a sense of trying to swim upstream, against the rushing currents. That each time you let go of the bank, you're just going to be swept further downstream.... And, that if you accept that, you might as well just stay in the comfortable shallows, never growing, never realising the fullness of what God wants you to be...
I suppose the response to that would start by looking to God to change us from within?. If we acquire the revelation that the God's plans for us start to be revealed when we realise that he is both capable and willing to leading us into all the good things for which he "knitted us together in our mother's womb", then - maybe - the answers can be found in Worship - as Dan quotes - "worship starts with seeing You". Maybe it's to be found in prayer, "the heartfelt prayer of a righteous man availeth much", or maybe it's to be found in the community of the church ... so comment away!
But - to be honest - I don't really know. At some point soonish, I'm going to be looking for a new job, I'm going to be looking for a new place to live, and I'm going to be looking for a new kind of Richie to experience them - trusting all to the one who does not let my foot slip, and who lights my steps before me.
posted by RichB @ Tuesday, February 28, 2006
8 Comments:
The things that are inspiring me at the moment are... Leaders are self-starters. They begin with the end in mind and act accordingly. And no-one ever achieved anything great by doing nothing so since I want to be great I'd better behave differently than doing nothing.
I know change comes from within, but external influence can also be very powerful. Take me for example and starting to go to the gym during my internship. That came about because Kevin told me I would be going at least 4 times a week. In beginning to action that I did have to change some internal thinking about how I view myself. It's quite amazing because I'm seeing the effects of working out more and more in my body shape and to be honest I didn't ever think I would achieve this in my life because I was lazy... but I wasn't lazy and soon you'll see for yourself! so now I'm inspired to think what other areas of my life can change even if I've thought for a long time that they couldn't.
I could say a lot more but I'd better do some more work today!
My apathy usually stems from the mentality that whatever I undertake will, in the end be a bit of a disappointment. Or even if the whole thing is worth the hassle, it's just so big that it's hard to know where to start.
But I also find that three things get me going when I'm in that situation:
1- Friends helping me to start out.
2- Planning the thing a little and figuring out that maybe, with God's help the whole thing is possible.
3- Trying to look at it from a much bigger perspective, so that I realize
a-it's not so big that it will destroy my life when I get it wrong.
b-in the end it will make a good story with a happy ending.
I read the book, and even got the Purpose Driven(tm) 'scripture cards' for Christmas!
To be honest, I think I might have missed the point whilst reading it... unless the point was simply "your purpose is to glorify God"...
Hmm, 'The Purpose Driven Life'... well it talks about what our purpose generally should be as Christians but it doesn't help us with an individual statement of what MY purpose is, like Charles would talk about. I think John Stanko (is that his name??) talks about that.
There's another line of thinking.. "what's in your hand?" i.e. what have you currently got that you can start working with? and "what's in your heart?" i.e. what's your vision for the future? If you know what's in your heart you can begin to focus what's in your hand to help you get to what's in your heart but if you don't know what's really in your heart you can still be faithful to keep exploring what's in your hand, seeing what fits what doesn't and move forward that way. I know that coming to New York has been another step along the road of "how do music and Jacki fit together?" Even if I don't see the end in mind (like I was talking about in my last comment), the principle of wanting to be all I can for God helps to determine how I live out my days under the sun.
I don't have any worthwhile advice, but i must say that even reading your questions and seeming lack of knowledge is enlightening, Mr. Barber.
Thanks to everyone who's commented...
Certainly the overall abiding themes of the comments so far are:
"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart"
and
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you"
I'm re-reading 'The PD(tm)L' again now, and am planning to take some time off at some point in the next couple of weeks anyway, to properly do the 'seeking thing' in an environment where actually there's the space for me to hear the answers!
Regarding the 'delight yourself in the Lord' verse.... I sort of wanted to write a blog on this, but didn't quite feel I had enough meat to discuss...
There's a horrendously dodgy theology out there that sort of presumes that if there's something I really want to do, then it can't really be spiritual - it's just my *fleshly desire*, and can't possibly be Godly...
Now, I know what's being said here. We want God's will above our own, yes, certainly. There are plenty of things I could do simply because 'I want to'... and indeed, they may not be God's plan for me at that time... but also, they just might be...
I think that when you delight yourself in the Lord, the desires of your heart become God-focussed over time. Sometimes we can get so 'scared to proceed' in case we slip out of God's will, such is our enormous passion to do God's will. And hence, we end up not doing very much at all.
But people like John Eldredge in I think all of his books, encourage us to trust our (submitted) hearts a bit more. If you seek God first... which I suggest means something pretty similar to delighting yourself in the Lord... then you're left with rather an interesting question....
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?!
You have permission to ask that question, to start taking steps towards it, because people who delight themselves in God have similar desires to Him.
I suspect that in the changes that you're heading for, a highly important question (maybe even THE question) for to help decide what the 'new kind of Richie' is going to be like...
(I really can't believe I'm going to say this...)
TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU REALLY REALLY WANT!
"I am ashamed"
I hope it's not just a new Richie you're heading for, but rather towards 'The Real Richie'. More like peeling off a layer, (if that's not too painful!), and getting closer to the 'core' of what really fires you up...
Yeah but Eeeverbody loves parfait.
I feel the answer Wes is lookig for is quite self-evident and should chastise you for not sugggesting it first:
tea
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