Looking Beyond Where You Are

Rarely have I been so moved or inspired by a daily devotional book. I want to thank my friend (again) for giving it to me. Here is what I gleaned from today's readings:

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Does that sound at all familiar? Let me remind you:

Forget about what's happened; don't keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting out! Don't you see it? There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.

Too often we become accustomed to the status quo. We refuse to make room in our own (?) thinking for the new things God wants to do in our lives. I questioned "own" thinking because I know how easily we are influenced by the thoughts and teachings of others. It is far too easy to just accept what we hear from the pulpit or read in a book. I believe this is the status quo Osteen is talking about.

What are we doing when we accept the status quo? We are limiting God. And we need to stop. People feel safe when they have boundaries; a set of rules to follow and lines they daren't cross. People like living in a box. That is okay for people, but how can it possibly be okay for God? We have limits. He doesn't!

Osteen says God can give us a fresh dream. In order to see it, we have to be daring. We have to let go of our limited thinking. We need to dare to venture out. In Osteen's words: "God can show you more but you have to get out of your little box."

Being enclosed in our usual comfortable environment is all we've ever known. It has provided us with a certain level or way of thinking. AND it makes us complacent, which keeps us living in mediocrity. We keep ourselves there by doing things we've always done: Reading the Bible and other materials with the same mindset we always have, accepting the doctrine of our parents and our parent's parents without researching for ourselves, and keeping ourselves bound up in the 'rules' of the day.

I want to encourage you as I encourage myself. God wants us to go further. He wants us to break out of the mold. He doesn't want us to settle for what our parents or other spiritual leaders had. Christ was all about freedom. Let's go out and find it.

(by the way, I got the job.)