God has provided me many blessings: Great family, friends,
job, and most importantly His salvation. I feel that the majority of my adult
life has been geared towards pursuing MY goals. I feel blessed to be in my
current position, and in terms my career path, my hours of hard work, studying,
and sacrifice have paid off. I feel that I have now come to a fork in the road.
Do I turn left, put my nose to the grind, load up my 401k, wardrobe, IPod, and
“checklists”? Pursue the feeling of comfort, which compared to others I am
winning at life? The feeling of pride that I am a successful person? (Don’t
store treasures for yourselves here on earth where moths and rust will destroy
them and thieves can break in and steal them MAT 6:19)
I am all for 401k contributions (I even recommend 10-15%…ha-ha),
I enjoy nice clothes, cars, electronics, and success. But I’ve constantly failed
attempting to further the plans that God has for me while following MY plan. I
feel that my success ends with the things of the world. Would God call my life
a success? Reading the bible (check), Tithes (check), missions trip (check),
church attendance (check minus), my relationship with the living God (…)? Our
relationship with God is not called to be a checklist. It’s not called to be
something that appears on Sundays, or before we go to bed. Herein lays my
failure. I am unable to pursue HIS goal, while I’m walking down my own path.
This is why I have decided to look right at this fork and move forward.
It was about 9 months ago that I heard of the World Race
mission trip. At that time it looked like an awesome life changing experience,
a great trip for others…including Katie (a girl I had met through my Dominican
Republic mission trip who left on the same trip this past October). Maybe a bit
jealous of her future plans, I told myself that I would be better off on MY
path. Anyone can NOT work and travel around the world. Right? What is she going
to do about retirement saving during her trip? I wonder if she knows to get
health insurance? Since that time I have excelled in my new position (that I
also started 9 months ago), during this time I also passed my two day CFP test
that averages a 57% pass rate, and am on my way to a nice yearend bonus. What
now? Wash, rinse, repeat? Through prayer and meditation I feel that God has a
different plan in mind for me the next cycle (pun intended). The ultimate badass
of the New Testament, Peter, had this response to Jesus’ initial request to
come with him: “So Simon (Peter) and Andrew immediately left the boat and their
father, and they followed Jesus. (MAT 4:22)
I pray that through this next year I will be able to break
down some of the barriers that I have created between myself and the living
God. I hope to strengthen my relationship with Him, so that I may hear him more
clearly, and continue down HIS path the short time I am on this world. When asked which command was the most
important Jesus replied, “The most important command is this: ‘Listen, people
of Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength’ The second
command is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There are no
commands more important than these” (MRK 12:28-31). I will work on developing
myself this next year by improving my ability to have more love, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. I also hope to glorify and spread His Word to
those neighbors both near and far: US, Ireland, Ukraine, Romania, Israel,
Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Thailand, Cambodia, and other areas of within Asia and
Africa.
