The Back Story.

My latest read is Anything: the prayer that unlocked my God and my Soul by Jennie Allen.  It's the latest in a series of books I've read over the last couple of years that have caused me to make some major changes in my life.  I've decided that if God is who He says He is, and I believe that, then I need to show that in the way I live my life.

When we (by we, I mean my small group at church) read Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna, it caused me to realize I need to spend more time with my kids, that they are my mission field and it's my job to instruct them in Gods ways.  I should be their primary resource in their spiritual life, not church or friends, or school.  I had been investing in other people's kids lives for too long, I needed to change my focus to my own kids and with laser beam intensity.

Then, we ready Crazy Love by Francis Chan and I realized that God loves me, really, deeply, crazy loves me.  And how amazing that is considering how small I truly am in the scope of the entire population of the world, much less the entire universe.  Whoa!  I also realized that I was very much a Martha, busy, moving, working, trying to get everything just right when I really just needed to slow down, and sit at Jesus's feet, like Mary.

This year, we read Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman.  This book challenged us to decide whether we were true followers of Christ or merely fans.  It challenged us to die to ourselves daily.  To take up our cross and follow Jesus.

If all of this is true, and God is who He says He is, and I believe that, then I needed to make some changes.

I really liked my job.  I liked the people I worked with, I liked the school I taught in, I liked the feeling that I was making a difference, and the students... I LOVED the students, they were my favorite part.  But, I needed to let go, to be obedient to God's nudging in my life, so I quit.  Not only did I quit my job, but I quit everything else I was doing, too.  And, I said no to anyone that asked me to do anything that was outside of my home or would take time away from my family.  I was committed to taking at least one year off from everything but my family and I would re-evaluate at the end of the year.

We were pretty sure that we could make ends meet without my pay check and trusted that God would provide when they didn't.  So far, he has been more than faithful.  It is amazing when I sit down to pay the bills, knowing that it's going to be tight, and ending up with enough to cover all of our needs of our family of six and throw some money toward other peoples' needs as well.

That was a long story cut short.  In a nutshell, I've quit my job, I'm focused on my kids, my bills are paid and the year is almost up.  I'm learning to focus solely on God.

As June draws closer, I started to think about what it is that God wants me to do.  There are so many areas that I can serve and so many things I'm interested in doing but I couldn't think of anywhere at church that I wanted to invest.  I was frustrated and trying to solve it myself.   One particular Sunday at church, while I was wrestling with all of this, they sang the song, Help Me Find It by the Sidewalk Profits.  As I listened to the words of the song, I realized that God knows exactly what he wants me to do.  He has a plan for me, which he created in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do).  As I listened, I let go, I prayed, "God you already know what you want me to do, please just help me find it."  After church, I told a friend, "I'm ready to dive in, but I'm just not sure where to dive."  As I was explaining this to her, one of the pastors at church approached me.  

He said, "I know you're on a sabbatical, and I hate to even ask you, but you just keep coming to mind when I think about this..."  

I just laughed, and said, "yes".  

He said, "you don't even know what it is."

I said, "It doesn't matter, this is what I've prayed for, I'll do it."

We met later that week and as I listened to his idea about a new ministry they are working on a church, I couldn't help but giggle.  God loves me, and has a plan for me, and it's perfect.  It's better than anything I could have created for myself.  

As I'm preparing to serve in this new ministry, I want to be careful to let Him lead the way.  I want it to be His ideas, His objectives and His plans, not my own.  Which brings me back to my latest read,  Anything.

To summarize, the author, Jennie Allen, and her husband, Zac, decided to pray and give God anything.  Anything they had, anything they did, not just anything, everything.  That God would use them for anything He wanted or needed to.  As I read, I just knew that this was the next step for me spiritually.  

 If God is who He says He is, and I believe that, then I need to show that in the way I live my life.