Tag: God’s call

If you want to get there, first you have to be here

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galatians 6

My five-year-old has taken to the piano like a hummingbird to nectar.

She watched her older sisters play for years and could not wait for her turn to tackle those first assignments in the beginner piano book.

Of course, it starts out so easy. Follow the pictures, plunk down the right finger and ‘presto’—a song! It might only be ten notes long, but it’s still a song and she aced it with no effort at all.

Then the lesson grew a little harder. She needed to read actual notes and sometimes those notes went in unexpected directions.

You mean not all songs use just four keys?

After one mistake, she collapsed into deep sobbing. I finally calmed her down enough to understand what she was saying. “I (sob) can’t (sob) do (sob) it (big, big, big sobbing).”

I’m her teacher and her mom, though, and I know better.

I know that one wrong note the first time you play the song does not mean you can’t do it.

I tried to tell her, “When you play the piano, sometimes you hit some wrong notes. You don’t play every song perfectly the first time you play it. You have to make mistakes and fail sometimes, but you just don’t give up. You practice and practice and work hard and then you get it right.”

After that award-winning Mom-advice, she looked right at me and whined, “I don’t want to play the piano then.”

She was ready to give up, ready to pack it all in and call this whole experiment in piano playing a complete failure at the grand old age of five years old because it took a little effort and because failure was part of the learning experience.

Have you felt like giving up recently?

Have you made a few mistakes and decided maybe God should pick someone else for this job?

I’ve been there so many times before.

I’ve looked around at where I’m at and how hard it is, and I’ve thought, “I’ve gone far enough.  I’ve exerted enough effort.  It’s just too costly and time-consuming and emotionally draining and I think I need to stop.  Take a vacation.  Escape.  Quit and do something easier.  Settle for something less.  I just can’t do this anymore, God.  I’m not seeing any results, blessing or reward, so this just doesn’t seem worth it.”

Sometimes it’s just fine with me to stay on the beginner lessons and never move on to mastery.

Because this is just too hard.

But, God’s our Teacher and our Father and He knows better.

He knows that sometimes we grow tired and weary and that in those moments, it’s difficult to remember the vision He gave us or the call He placed on our hearts.

He knows sometimes we want to pack it in and curl up in His lap for a rest.

He knows that sometimes the only way we learn is to make a mistake or two, to try again, to practice and practice and inch our way forward….but that what we really want is instant victory.

If that’s you today and you feel like giving up and giving in, look ahead.

I tell my daughter not to give up because one day she wants to play this song and that song and she wants to play harder music and beautiful pieces.

And if you want to get there, first you need to be here.  

Here might be hard.
Here might be costly.
Here might be lonely.
Here might be exhausting.
Here might seem unimportant or it might seem to be taking forever and can’t we move on to something new now because frankly I’m tired of waiting and I’d rather just skip to the end?!

When all you can see is the difficulty of the moment, it’s hard to keep going.

Remember the goal.

Then take the next step.

You can’t conquer everything in a day.  It wont always be easy. You’ll falter.  You’ll have to persevere.  But that next step…the one right there infront of you….that’s all you need to do today.

So, take heart.

Do not give up.

“But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded” (2 Chronicles 15:7, NIV).

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, NIV).

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

The Meaning of Life

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My oldest daughter wants to be a ballet-dancing scientist and teacher (not a science teacher, mind you, a scientist and a teacher who also does ballet on the weekends).

My middle daughter wants to be a magician who also tells jokes (thanks to the program we saw at our public library this summer by a very funny magician-entertainer).

I can’t even count how many possible careers I once considered to be the definitive answer to, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Pastor, college professor, librarian, pianist, lawyer, editor, teacher.  Any and all of them were on the list at some point.

Most of them probably still are on the list if I’m being truthful.

The thing about life is that so often we’re looking for that one overarching purpose.  What were we made for?  What did God put us on the earth to do?

And if our answer is at all ordinary or seemingly unsubstantial, it seems like not enough.  Our hunt for that one grand design continues.

We ravage books on anything that will help us find the neon sign of God’s will for our lives.

To me, though, the ultimate end of such books is sometimes disillusionment.  Inevitably, the author discovers through miraculous circumstances that he’s meant to be a missionary to Africa or she is meant to lead an international ministry to the “least of these.”

Meanwhile, you may be reading this blog in between diaper changes and laundry cycles.  Or maybe you’re munching away on your lunch at your desk with papers to file on the left and accounts to enter on the right.

So, what does this mean exactly?  Does God only have a purpose for some of us and the rest are just fodder for the world economy or babysitters for the next generation?  Are we “ordinary folks” the rejects God decided He couldn’t use for any truly meaningful life purpose?

Or does God have some top-secret design for our lives and we just haven’t performed the correct magical ritual to unlock it–the five simple steps to discovering our purpose?

Of course, there’s a very real way to miss out on God’s plans for you.   If we aren’t willing to obey what He says, we will not be in His will.

Yet, there are those of us who have prayed heartfelt confessions of submission so many times and we’re still searching for the plan.

Honestly, as a teenager I was baffled at how some prophets responded to God’s call. God said, “Go” and so many of them (Moses, Jeremiah, Gideon, Barak) answered, “I’m too young.  I can’t.  Send someone else.”

Now, if God said to me, “Go,” I was sure I’d be the “Here am I, send me” kind of girl.  I’d be like an audience member picked to be on The Price is Right, screaming my head off all the way to the stage in wild excitement.

But there are times when it feels like our names just aren’t being called.  Others take the stage and are commissioned.  We clap for them and listen even harder for our turn.

Have you been there?

Perhaps, though, we need to stop searching for one sole purpose like there’s only one point to our life.  The truth is, God has a plan for you and that plan involves here and now and not just tomorrow.

Colossians 1:16b tells us, “all things were created through him and for him” (ESV)

Chris Tiegreen writes:

“If you have ever struggled to find meaning in your life, consider this amazing truth: You were created for Jesus.  You weren’t created incidentally as a by-product of the rest of creation.  You were specifically designed for Him.  You are a bride, handpicked for the Bridegroom; or an adopted son, chosen specifically by His Father” (Worship the King, p. 104).

God created us for Him.  More specifically, Scripture says:  “Everyone who is called by My Name, whom I have created for my glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him” (Isaiah 43:7)

Why are you here?  What’s your grand purpose?  What’s God’s plan for your life?

To give Him glory.

Today that might mean dishes, diaper changes and laundry—with a cheerful heart, fully invested in the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of the children God has specifically placed in your care.

Today it might mean praying for a coworker in the next cubicle over.  It might mean quitting one job and starting on another.  It might mean mentoring a younger woman or meeting with your neighbor for coffee.

God doesn’t just have a plan for your life: He has a plan for your every day.  Don’t become so focused on the grand design that you miss the beautiful, God-ordained moments of ministry He brings across your path today and tomorrow and the next day.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.