Lillies of The Field.

So many times I try to figure out God's plan for me. So many times I want to know what comes next. I want to know what God is teaching me, I want to know how it applies. I think practically of God. Seemingly in a good way, but when I consider the lillies of the field they don't act as I do. They don't ask God to make sense of their bloom, or their growth...or ask why the exist. They just do. But it seems to so easy to say they just do. Of course they do. They are flowers. They don't have brains and overactive imaginations. They are just flowers. But yet we know they exude God's beauty. They are a picture of His overactive imagination. How then can they be just lillies of the field? I think the lesson here is this, when we exude God...when we are out to point to Heaven-the Kingdom of God-we won't take consideration of our lives. where we shall live. or eat. or who we will marry. or what house i will buy. or car. or clothes... we will simply exist. When our focus is Christ. our focus is Christ. that's it. But how to make Christ our focus?
I am learning that we are the people of game plans. We must have a plan, there must at least be a method to the madness. So we seek ways to focus on Christ. Ironic isn't it? We set out with this great thought of immersing ourselves in Christ. Yet we focus on the gameplan. No wonder Christ asked if the disciples where that dense. Am I that dense. What is wrong with me. Clearly the answer here is to immerse myself in Christ. That is the how. It just is. No gameplan. No set amount of prayer, or quiet times, or bible studies will get us there. We are there now. Open your eyes, breathe in, listen.
Crazy things will start to happen. You will start to see yourself act as Christ. I know I know. Profound. But it's true. Keep in mind this isn't part of the gameplan...it is a result of Christ. You can't will yourself here. I have tried. Doesn't work. I am amazed at the gut wrenching truth that is borne from within. It hurts. It is embarrasing. I am no longer important. It isn't about me. It isn't about me. I can feel Christ at work, wringing out what is left of sin. It is amazing. I am beginning to understand that true freedom comes from submission. It just doesn't make sense. But it works. Crazy how all the things that don't make sense end up being perfect. Praise God that it doesn't make sense...grace? mercy? new creation? it doesn't make sense. but it ends up being perfect.

Change.

When I think about my future I can't help but think about my past. Where I have been. The places that I have seen. The friends that have impressed my spirit. When I think about times past I can't help but to grieve. To grieve memories lost, time wasted, the hurt, the laughs. I see time clearly, tangibly. I hold the still images in my mind and in an instant they return from which they came. The tears, they come, they flood my spirit. Change encroaches and I wish to retreat. I wish to run, to return to the days of old, to be me before now. Why must we change? Why must life change? I can imagine the disciples in their despair. Jesus has been their friend, their teacher, their family...and then the plan changes, life happens, and His ends. Why? Why does it have to happen. I am happy. I am just fine here now. I am just now getting the hang of it, don't take it now. No. But He must. If I am to grow, to sink my roots down deep into Him, it must happen. They journey must continue and the music will play on. Can anyone see, does anyone know, can you hear me? It hurts. I don't want to do this, I proclaim! Is there any other way? Why have you forsaken me? The ironic yet reassuring fact remains, the God I can't see, and have never audibly heard sustains. He wipes away my tears, and holds me when it hurts. He tells me He knows...He knows life that was meant to be something else, but in time and in evil it changed...oh but look what a beautiful masterpiece it became. Change. It must. I must. But how? I only look back to see that it has happened, but take no note of it in the process...God has a plan. and it changes in time and in evil. but a beautiful masterpiece I will become.