After final closure on our house in California with a short sale I was recently driving through neighborhoods by the Mckenzie River with big beautiful homes. I found myself dreaming about owning our own home again and I began to compare where I was in life against where the people who owned these homes were, basically comparing myself to others. It was an easy pity party and one that would lead me down a slippery slope. I eventually drove across a bridge and came to a fork in the road. My options were to keep going the way I was and I would reach a dead end or to turn around, go back the way I came without looking at everything around me and be on my way.

God said your life is like this: you’ve come to a fork in the road; you can keep going toward the dead end you are on or you can turn around and go back the way you came and stop looking around you comparing yourself to others but to look to the plans God had for me and be on my way.

Our lives are a lot like this….when we accept Christ we are at a cross roads we can keep going on the same way with our obstinate self will and our own ambitions while now trying to fit God into our lives or we can turn around go back from where we have come and listen to the plans God has for us.

Oswald Chambers wrote in His devotional titled:

But It Is Hardly Credible That One Could So Persecute Jesus!

Am I set on my own way for God? We are never free from this snare until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire. Obstinacy and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set upon our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Jesus. Whenever we stand on our dignity we systematically vex and grieve His Spirit; and when the knowledge comes home that it is Jesus Whom we have been persecuting all the time, it is the most crushing revelation there could be…..All I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that I can be easily put upon, easily over-reached, easily ignored; but if I submit to it for His sake, I prevent Jesus Christ being persecuted.

Last week I celebrated my 53^rd birthday and as I reflected and pondered where I had been and where I was going it dawned on me that even as a Christian I had really just gone on my same way that I had been before God and just simply tried to put Him into My Life, My ambitions, My dreams, My desires…..and as Oswald chambers wrote this is wounding Christ again and again…..ughhhhhh that killed me….literally….I want the last 53 years of my life to be years in which I have completely yielded to God’s plans for me no matter what they look like.

I believe this is what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus….to follow Jesus right into the very presence of a Holy God without fear of instantaneous death….into the presence of God Most High whose character is protective, caring, nurturing, disciplining, rebuking and overall loving. The blood of Christ has allowed us this amazing privilege. The rest of this verse goes onto say:

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? [Luke 9:24-25 NIV]

We are at a crossroads when we accept Christ….we can keep going on the same path and try to fit God into our lives…..periodically comparing our lives with others around us or we can stop turn around and begin to listen to God and yield ourselves into His plan for our lives….

Going on our own way literally stabs at Jesus over and over again…..this should be crushing to us.

Whether you are a brand new child of God or like me have been a child for a long time, the time is now to turn around and yield ourselves into God’s plans for us because as His word says:

For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." [Jer 29:11]

And so the adventure continues…..

Loving on You,