No Control...and I like it!!!

I'm sitting down to write this and honestly don't know exactly where it is going.  I have had a few thoughts from the LORD over the past couple of days that seem random and that they don't go together, but I feel like there is some connection.  SO, if you have any thoughts on this I'll take it.

There is a sermon by a faithful brother named Jeff Parker who serves at Watermark's Plano Campus. I have listened to it 3 times since January.  That sermon is a HUGE part of my story and so is Jeff.  I was listening to the sermon yesterday and a line stuck out that I don't remember from the first 2 times I listened to it.  "Those who have tested the warnings of Scripture, can't help but live the rest of their lives trying to taste the promises of Scripture."  When you have rebelled, when you have seen the destruction that lies on the other side of going against God's ways, everything in you just wants to see God and His ways.  I have a good friend that said for him it is being grateful everyday for the things God has given.  It is not taking for granted anything.  I am grateful for the promises of God.  I don't mean some health/wealth gospel.  I mean the promises that God brings forgiveness and restoration.  That although consequences of sin are real (and sometimes lasting), God's grace is bigger than even the hardship of consequences.  God's promises and path is always better!

The other thought I have had is from Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free..."  There is only 1 type of freedom!  There is only 1 type of bondage!  The freedom is following God, trusting God, living each day as if it is for Him and Him alone.  The only bondage is living ANYTHING that is even slightly against that premise.  In the last few weeks the new job has had me worried, what if I don't do good enough, what if I make mistakes, what if I can't provide for my family.  The other day it hit me, that is not freedom.  That is not what Christ died for.  That is me being enslaved to my insecurity.  That is me being enslaved to my performance.  That is me being enslaved to worry.  When that thought hit me, that Christ died to bring freedom, not just for my sin (although that is 100% true), but also to my insecurity, worry, self, it changed me.  It made me realize that I have nothing to be enslaved to.  Nothing that can hold any sway over me.  Freedom is being whimsical! Freedom is being goofy!  Freedom is enjoying all that God has! Freedom is working your tale off, finding joy in that work, and realizing that God has all of it.  I can't control anything, NOTHING is in my control, except this one thing...Living Free in Christ!

The last thought sort of builds off the previous thought...at least in my weird mind.  It is ONLY in my weakness that God's strength shines through.  2 Corinthians 12:9b-10, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong"  Paul is talking here about several things.  He is talking about hardships that God brings to strengthen Paul's faith.  He is talking about outside persecution that is brought because we live in a fallen world.  But I also believe he is talking about the fact that his strength is not strength but weakness.  Our best efforts fall WAY short.  I am coming to realize, that I am SO weak.  When I admit my weakness, when I live not as someone in control, but as someone who has NO control and I trust in the only one that has control, that is when life works.  I cannot be free if I am living trying to control.  I cannot be free living in my own strength.  True freedom comes when I confess my weaknesses and trust the only strong one!

I want to live dependent on God.  Let's be honest, that is scary sometimes.  It is scary because God wants us to be people of faith, not people of comfort.  God is not here to make us happy, God is here to make us holy.  God's desire is to change us from what we were to what we are becoming.  We are in process.  That process for me right now is realizing complete dependence on God and His ways is the ONLY way.  I have lived the other side...it is not good.  God and His ways I have tasted, and they are good!  I am grateful today.  I am grateful for my beautiful wife.  I am grateful for my crazy kids.  I am grateful for amazing friends that are walking with us.  I am grateful for a job that is causing me to exercise faith in ways I never have before.  I am grateful, because I have no control (what a freeing thought!)