Slowing Down

Sometimes it seems as if everything happens all at once only to lead you to another moment where things seem to happen all at once all over again

As I watched my wife curled up on our couch asleep, I guess it all just started to hit me that if she was pregnant, how much everything would change. 

A part of me was terrified of just simply not knowing what it would all look like or what to expect.

It was as if we were entering into a huge storm in the open ocean with no body around. 

That’s at least what it felt like. 

At the same time, I saw how peaceful she was asleep and how much we both wanted to have children.

In that moment, I was overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts. 

I sort of half-grinned in the most sober way as I thought, “So this is what a young man goes through when they enter the unknowns of this particular part of their journey.” 

Although I would imagine it won’t always feel so “unknown“ is about the same for every young man first experiencing what I am now. 

    I went for a jog later that evening.

It eventually and reluctantly turned into a very slow walk as I could feel God wanting me to slow down so we could talk. 

That usually happens when I’ve been going and going without any breaks to explore my own heart and connect with His. 

It was hard at first to just be honest about what I was feeling and to be honest with the million random thoughts scattered around in the chaos of my head. 

I was weary from not having any point of reference to make sense of any of it. 

I remember being there at that exact same paved jogging trail many times before, with a heavy heart, taking much needed slow walks with God. 

I was single then. 

Now, as I looked down at my left hand, things had changed. 

I had a beautiful bride asleep back at the house and the possibility of her being pregnant. 

Things were definitely different and I found myself wanting everything to slow down. 

Not that anything felt wrong or out of place . . . but I was feeling sort of “behind” in processing everything that had happened and was going on then.

Sometimes it seems as if everything happens all at once only to lead you to another moment where things happen all at once all over again.

Eventually after enough of those moments, you either never get to really process them or they begin to pile up inside of you.

I think most of us walk around with the latter.

So as I walked slowly along the paved trail, across the creek, I saw some lights strung up over a little porch area in someone’s backyard. 

It looked as if they were in the middle of putting them up because the ladder was still there but must have called it a night or taken a break. 

There was something so honest and human about seeing that.

And in that moment God began to remind me gently that everyone is just living life . . . living the life they have and doing the best they can to live it. 

All in a glimpse it seemed so clear to me, to just keep walking out each day.

To just enjoy and passionately embrace all God is doing, right where I am. 

To just keep giving all of myself to every step God leads me in taking. 

God showed me a quick snippet, a vision of a possible future.

I starting imagining my wife standing in our home with a big baby bump and us putting up some decorations with the fire place going behind us. 

It gave me hope. 

It reset my perspective. 

God reminded me in the simplest way the path I am on right now, to not miss the moments that will offer themselves only once to me.

It took slowing down to remember life will blow right past you very quickly if you let it.

To Cast Out Fear

We try to turn our fear-based behavior into love-based behavior instead of allowing God who is love to cast it out

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“There is no fear in love”

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When I read that, I see . . . 

“There is no fallen nature or sin or darkness in God”

    We cannot turn fear into love. How often do we try though?

And when I say “love,” I mean the kind that moves us to want and do what is best for others above ourselves.

It means the opposite of controlling . . . worrying ourselves until we are not thinking straight. 

Power, love, and a sound mind as we know the scriptures to tell us.

That scripture is describing something very different from fear.

    Let’s swap the words for a second: from "perfect love" to God and "fear" to the ways of this fallen world.

God (perfect love) casts out or expels [to where there is no more room for] the ways of this fallen world (fear).

That's the father we have in Him, but how often do we try and expel the fear?

We get frustrated sometimes attempting to have a "perfect love" for people we think we should . . . like a spouse or family member or significant other.

We expect that of ourselves and with that unrealistic expectation, we can expect to continually invite shame and guilt in for not meeting it.

How often do we try and fight against the fear as if we think we stand a chance?

Is God saying that we can expel darkness with our will-power or positive thinking?

Or even re-adjusting our focus or trying to “calm ourselves down” . . .

We are all guilty of doing this.

Yet, that is not the truth our Creator revealed to show us how to handle fear.

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"Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear"

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The word used here for "perfect" is "tel-i-o'-o" which translates to meaning basically to be found perfect and complete and to be brought to an end or to be finished.

I don't think I need to go too deep into the fact that none of us will ever fit that on this side of heaven. 

Actually, there is only one who has and His name is Jesus.

Like so many other times in scripture, God's message here is simple:

You need me.

But for some reason like everything else we face, we try on our own strength to forcibly change our behaviors because we know all too well we don't measure up.

But Jesus did not die on the cross so God the Father would have well behaved children.

This is about one thing . . . and that's relationship.

We try to turn our fear-based behavior into love-based behavior instead of allowing God who is love to cast it out.

Where is your focus?

Is it on the things that worry you?

Here is a practical picture I see when I think about all of this.

I worked in children's ministry for years. One of the many things I noticed, not always necessarily the case but for the most part evident, is I could tell who were Pastor's kids and who were not.

Again, this wasn't always the case because I met plenty of well taken care of children who lived in a home of God's love, but I could usually tell who were children of a Pastor's family.

They were typically much more secure in how they interacted with their other peers and they just smiled more.

They had more fun . . . enjoyed and engaged more in the activities we did . . . and didn't show signs of shame for just being a kid.

Why is that?

Were they focused on being "fearless" like so many of these cheesy quotes we see on Instagram?

Or maybe there is something so much more deeper than that going on every time I would notice the children who were different than the others?

It was relationship.

The most secure a child can be is directly connected to their relationship with their father and mother.

A son walking along side of his father on a dark path in the middle of the woods is secure and fearless not because he could do it without his father.

He would not feel the same without his dad right there with him.

No, if that father has loved that child and taken care of him and built him up in their identity in who they were created to be . . . 

That child is secure knowing they have their dad right there with them.

It's all relationship.

Love isn’t a behavior!

Love is a being!

Love is a living being who is God our Father, Jesus our Savior, and His Spirit within us, our comforter and leader in all truth.

Why wouldn’t we go to the relationship with our Father who already exists . . . to the Love in which we already have full access to?

We try to conjure up some behavior that doesn’t yet exist and never will in our repertoire in being less fearful or stressed or full of anxiety.

Yet, God has given us the way of His design.

It is not and never will be our behavior that will break us away from fear.

It is growing in our relationship with God and letting that closeness with Him change us . . . our very "DNA make-up" sort of speak! 

He is perfect love and He alone is the only one who can cause fear and all its accosiates to be expelled from moment to moment.

Let's turn our focus from fear and whatever else we feel we fail in and turn our focus towards our relationship with our Creator alone . . . and everything else must come into alignment.

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(Let's pray together)

    Father, in Jesus' name help me to instead, focus on our relationship . . . the relationship You want so badly with me . . . to be close and for You to be involved with every part of my life. Thank You that You are that loving perfect father who gives me security and confidence in any situation because I have You. I don't want to be obsessed with my behavior and all the symptoms of not walking closely to You . . . but instead be obsessed with being close to You and staying there. I want to talk to You about everything and listen to what You want to say to me and feel You directing my life. I surrender in a new way right now to that. I love You, Father.

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-scripture used: 1 John 4:18

Tailwind

Because we were born into a fallen world, we were born with a head wind that doesn't stop . . . an enemy that won't ever stop attempting to destroy us and God's will for our lives.

    Being in God's will can be almost effortless . . . like a tail wind for an airplane giving a great force behind you speeding you along for the ride. 

It is not the same without that.

Pilots are familiar with this.

The tail wind is an important factor that so effects the travel time that it can reduce it significantly. 

And going against what we know is what God wants for our life also has an opposite effect in that we feel the drag and friction and burden of our own lives upon our shoulders like a strong head wind rushing at us. 

It is very similar in an airplane in that there can either be a force behind you or coming at you with different results. 

    Around the time I turned 20, I went to a little hole-in-the-wall flight school at a small local airport to learn to fly. 

My goal was to go for a private pilot's license but I never finished. Because of how expensive attending college was along with learning to fly, I eventually had to choose one. I of course chose college but I had gotten far enough along in the process where I was flying solo without an instructor. 

There has never been anything like that in my life so far . . . no crazier feeling of a mixture in fear and adrenaline-infused excitement that you are flying an airplane far above the safety of the ground below. 

I felt completely free up there amongst the clouds and sky and exhilarating to have so much ability yet so much could go wrong at any point. 

The type of airplane I flew was an old Cessna 152. It was a small single engine two seater who's wings rested on top and going across the airplane's fuselage. Flying it was both fun and a lot of work because of how small it was. Plus it didn't have any digital navigation components many newer airplanes have now-and-days. 

Especially when it came to fly in windy days, it was challenging because the wind would throw you around like a Labrador retriever whipping around its favorite toy! 

So needless to say, if there was a way to get behind a tail wind, you definitely wanted to be in front of it letting it push you along rather than going head-on against it. 

The only time you actually wanted a head wind was during a landing approach. 

Because you must hit a quick but distinctive stall right before touching down on the runway, having a head wind helped with that maneuver. 

On the other hand, while taking off, you would want to be flying into the wind as it helps create wind speed over the wings to maintain lift while climbing to your desired flying altitude. 

But a head wind slows you down . . .

It can be beneficial if you are wanting that . . . but not so much if you are wanting to get to your destination on time. 

Typically time is a big factor when plotting a course somewhere and for the simple reason that with time comes fuel consumption. 

The more time you're in the air, the more fuel you consume. 

    Sometimes our walk is the same way with God. He has plotted a desired destination for us . . . somewhere He wants us to get to . . . and even has plans designed specifically depended on who He created us to be and to become. 

When it comes to life and all its heaviness and our fallen nature, we are much like that little Cessna 152 I used to fly. 

With every little gust of wind, I would feel it inside that little aircraft and I would have to make constant adjustments with trimming the wing flaps or holding the rudder pedals in a certain position.

    Circumstances can be those strong gusts of wind for us . . . sometimes unexpected and we get tossed around. We have to make adjustments to stay up in the air and we know we could easily at any point lose control. 

But, there is nothing like a good and consistent tail wind, pushing your little Cessna through the to the horizon ahead. 

Being in His will is much like this, giving consistency in an environment of wild winds and an ocean of atmosphere we would call the sky of our life. Flying was incredible and like nothing else, another world, one we didn't naturally come equipped to handle. Yet, we are able to pierce the chasm and do what no man was born with the ability to do . . . that being to fly. 

That is God's will for our lives. 

His will is simply unnatural for us without Him. Our lives are helpless without God, going into the wind of an enemy who wants nothing more than for us to be completely destroyed.

Because we were born into a fallen world, we were born with a head wind that doesn't stop . . . an enemy that won't ever stop attempting to destroy us and God's will for our lives.

There are so many factors working against us constantly . . . and it comes at great price to fight to stay in God's will for our lives. 

Maybe your work team doesn't have enough hands on deck. 

Maybe your marriage doesn't seem right anymore and you've lost hope. 

Maybe your life doesn't quite seem like it's heading anywhere and you're sort of in auto-pilot. 

Maybe you or a loved one is going through a dark time with you're or their health. 

Perhaps you are reading this and wondering where God is in your life and don't really feel it is near to you . . .

Regardless of the negative things we go through . . . the winds of life that come against us, God's will proves to always be the strongest force in our lives that has the ability to get behind us like a strong tail wind and push us to the life He has desired for us to live.

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"The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows]."

- Yeshua

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    God's will for our lives is what we should seek above all things . . . above anything and everything else, for with it comes something like a tail-wind that can push us beyond any limitations of any circumstances that would dare come against us . . . because with Him behind us, it is no longer us.

With Him as our tail-wind, it is us against anything else we face.