Bailing on God
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust God from the bottom of your heart.” (The Message)
I absolutely love being a grandmother and wholeheartedly agree with the saying, “If I had known grandchildren were so wonderful, I would have had them first!” Our fifteen-month-old granddaughter, Lelia Kay, sparkles with joy and has an infectious laugh that instantly captures your heart and compels you to laugh along with her. Consequently, our son, Jered, is always looking for ways to make her laugh. On a recent visit, he proudly demonstrated one of the new “tricks” he had taught Lelia. I was horrified!
Jered came home from work, scooped up his squealing daughter in his arms and gave her a big hug. Lelia giggled, grabbed her daddy’s shirt in both hands and looked up at Jered, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. He looked over at me and said, “Watch, mom!” Jered tightened his hold on his daughter’s chubby little legs, and said, “Bail, Lelia!” Surely, I had heard him wrong. Nope! My precious grandbaby immediately fell backwards through the air, hands dangling loosely over her head, swinging her little body through her daddy’s legs, laughing hysterically. My stomach fell and my mouth flew open as I watched her repeat this terrifying toddler version of bungee jumping. Not once did Lelia seem to be afraid or even cautious as she totally abandoned herself to the security of her father’s arms and heart.
That picture of faith took on a whole new meaning as we replayed it over dinner. Jered said, “I have to be careful because Lelia will sometimes bail on me when I’m not expecting it.” (Yes! That admission has increased my prayer life dramatically.) Memories of Jered as a baby, a toddler, a child, a teen, and a high school and collegiate football player came pouring back into my mind. Jered was strong “all boy” from day one. I looked over at Jered and like so many times over the years, marveled at his strength, thinking of the countless hours he has spent lifting weights, playing football and now building and remodeling homes. His massive arms and shoulders are a testimony of discipline and power and his gentle heart evidence of God’s love at work in his life. No wonder Lelia feels safe and secure in those arms.
I decided then and there that I want to be like Lelia. I want my faith in God to grow to the place where I can bail on God and totally abandon myself to my Father’s safe, strong arms, secure in the knowledge that He will catch me when I fall. I want to obey God without fear, trusting Him to be all I need. I want to depend on and experience God’s power and strength as I plunge into His plan for my life, knowing that He is aware of every step I take, that He monitors every breath I breathe and sees every tear I cry.
It can be scary to step out in faith. We tend to focus on what we cannot see instead of choosing to focus on God and His promises. We need to grow and mature in Christ but we also need to remain childlike in our faith.
Billy Graham said, “Most of us do not understand nuclear fission, but we accept it. I don’t understand television, but I accept it. I don’t understand radio, but every week my voice goes out around the world, and I accept it. Why is it so easy to accept all these man-made miracles and so difficult to accept the miracles of the Bible?” Faith can be defined as simply “confidence or trust”. We all have faith. We go to a doctor who is a total stranger. He gives us a prescription that we can’t read which we take to a pharmacist we don’t know who hands us a mysterious bottle of pills and we gobble them down - all in faith. Our problem is not a lack of faith. It is where we place our faith.
Faith is being willing to exchange the known for the unknown, knowing and believing that God is who He says He is. Faith believes that God is able and willing to work in our lives. It is easy to believe that with our head but that belief will never mean anything until it settles in our hearts and changes the way that we live. If we don’t live it, we don’t really believe it. Real faith takes us as far as we can see and when we get there, promises that we’ll be able to see farther. Faith is a personal issue. We cannot neither inherit faith nor borrow or rely on the faith of anyone else.
A man who works in the field of chemistry pointed out that if you mix hydrogen and oxygen, the two components of water, you get no reaction and no water. However, if you add a small amount of platinum to that mixture, things began to happen quickly. The hydrogen and oxygen unite and a chemical change occurs which produces H2O.
Platinum is the catalyst that produces water.
Personal commitment is the catalyst that produces personal faith.
Psalm 86:2 Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you. (NIV)
In this verse, “devoted” literally means “faithful.” Faith goes both ways. It amazing to think that when we make a personal commitment to God, that we not only have confidence in Him but that He has confidence in us. Trust in God does not come all at once but is a step by step process that begins with one small step. We often refuse to take the first step because we are afraid we won’t be able to make the whole journey. God increases our faith as we go! Don’t wait until you believe it all! Don’t wait until you can see it all! Don’t wait until you understand it all! Just step out in faith!
Every step you take deposits faith into your spiritual account and strengthens your trust in God. Faith can be real but dangerously misplaced. We can play the religious games, or say the right words and do good things but if we do not know God in a personal way, we have no security.
Jered has never dropped Lelia. It probably has not even occurred to her that her father could or would drop her. Lelia’s trust in her daddy is complete and whole. And I can tell you that Jered delights in that trust and will do everything he can to protect it. God is like that. He celebrates even our tiniest step of faith and rejoices when we abandon our self to Him. Today, choose to trust God and bail!
Take This Job And Love It!
Mary Southerland
Our son graduated from college with a business degree and the plan to build his own company from the ground up. Jered has been a gifted carpenter since childhood when he built his first “house” in our garage. Completely on his own, Jered gathered every scrap of plywood he could find and created a 10x10 foot clubhouse that was the envy of every kid in the neighborhood. When I asked him how he had known what to do, he said, “I just see it in my mind.” I knew right then that his life work was to build. Today, he is a master carpenter who recently said, “It is so awesome to get up every morning and love to go to work!”
Do you love to go to work? Do you love being in ministry? Many people never experience satisfaction or success in their work because they are in the wrong work! God is the source of all our skills, gifts, abilities and talents and He wants us to use them to the best of our ability. Proverbs 22:6 encourages parents to “train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it” (NIV). "The way he should go” means in the ways of God and in the direction or bent the child was created to go. In other words, we are designed with a natural inclination that naturally draws us toward God and the plan He has for us to live out.
Dan has served as a youth pastor in several churches over the years. As I served beside him, I gained a wealth of knowledge as I watched teenagers try on different identities like they tried on new clothes, discarding some in a matter of weeks, wearing others until they no longer fit. I will never forget the lesson I learned from Laura, a beautiful, talented girl who could have been anything in life that she chose to be. Instead, she had trouble finding jobs and rarely succeeded at any job she actually landed. I could not understand how such a beautiful girl could be so clueless about herself - until I met her parents.
It was painfully obvious that Laura's negative opinion of herself was firmly rooted in her parent's negative opinion of their daughter. Her room was a disaster because a clean room was important to her mother. Her grades were disgraceful because good grades were important to her father. She only dated guys who treated her like dirt because ... well, she believed that she was dirt. When Laura graduated from high school, I invited her to lunch to celebrate.
Over lunch, Laura confided in me that all she really wanted to do was to graduate from high school, attend a local beauty school to become a hair stylist and maybe one day to open her own beauty shop. I was so excited for her, because I could see her doing exactly that! Girls flocked to Laura for help with their hair and make-up because she was so good at it! When I asked her what was keeping her from that dream, tears streamed down her face as she said, “My parents think that being a hair stylist is a ridiculous idea. If I choose to attend a beauty school instead of a four-year-college, I have to move out and do it all on my own." When I offered to talk to her parents, she shook her head and said, "It won’t do any good." She was right. I did talk with them and nothing changed. But Laura did.
Laura moved out of her home and in with a man who introduced her to drugs and alcohol. Years later, I heard that she was living on the streets to support her habits. I have often wondered what would have happened if Laura's parents had supported the gifts and abilities God had given their daughter instead of holding her hostage until she paid the ransom of bowing to their plan for her life.
In John 3:27 we find a simple but powerful truth, "God in heaven appoints each person's work" (NLT). God gives each person a special job to do. John explained that because God had given him his work, he had to continue it until God called him to do something else. Amos raised sheep until God called him to be a prophet proclaiming God's message to others. If you are following God’s blueprint for your life, your job is part of your ministry plan and you are successful. God can and will work through you to do extraordinary things, no matter how "ordinary" your occupation may be in the eyes of man.
Over the years, we have often talked with our children about a life plan. One of the things we always tell them is that if they want to be successful and contented in life, they need to discover what they love to do and then find a way to get paid doing it. Take a brutally honest inventory of your natural gifts, talents and abilities, knowing that they are from God and are all part of your life plan. Ask those who know you best for their opinions and perspectives. Make a career choice based on persistent prayer and daily obedience to God. Discover what brings you the most satisfaction and do it. Life here is short. Do not waste it doing something you were not created to do. Choose your work carefully.
We were created by the One who knows us best and loves us most. There are no accidents with God. He never has to say, “Oops!” Before we were ever conceived in the heart and mind of man we were conceived in the heart and mind of God. Wanted, loved and planned since before the world began. He had a plan in mind and lovingly, purposefully created us in response to that plan.
I know there are days when the will of God seems completely wrong and we simply do not understand. Every moment is pregnant with darkness and our hearts are numb, paralyzed by fear and doubt. We are treading water in the storm tossed sea of life, desperately longing to see Him walking on the treacherous waves toward us, rescue in His hand. It is in those shadowed moments that we must choose to trust the Plan Maker even though our faith is small and we cannot understand the plan. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. One day, every one of our question marks will be yanked into exclamation points as we see that high plan as He sees it – perfect!
Today, my friend set aside your inadequate agenda. Lay down your limited life arrangement and look for God to meet you at the point of surrender - power and victory in His hands. Now that is a great plan!
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