I love how, when preaching, T.D. Jakes says, “Can I be real with you?”
I’m asking you that this morning, Can I be real with you?
As you can imagine, putting an event together is no small nor easy task.
While it’s a labour of sheer bliss and love- there have been moments through The Beautiful Series process where I’ve had times where I’d worry…
One morning as I was thinking this, I felt DaddyGod ask, “Are you doing this for me or for you?”
That question shocked me!
It was like the wind had been knocked out of me! But the question went so deep I knew that it was God. And I knew that as always, He was speaking in Love.
I was shocked by His question because: Of course Daddy! You KNOW I’m doing this for You?!
It’s why I’d started. I’d felt that everything I was doing was for Him. I was on a mission He had sent me on!
How Daddy- how after all this, do You ask me that?!
Daddy didn’t answer. Well not right away.
I think He just let me sit on that question for a while. My own heart would reveal to me what He was asking.
I was perplexed!
Really I was.
I just sat in the clarity of that cloud.
Clarity because God’s Love never ever condemns. There’s something about His correction that remains beautiful, even when it’s not necessarily pleasant. His setting us right comes packaged in His glorious Love. And it’s wonderful!
So that morning I thought on this question.
I thought of why I’d started- my heart was in the right place.
But somehow, along the way- I’d begun to worry.
Worry, in whatever forms it comes, is a sign that our eyes are steering away from His Kingdom.
Remember the verse: “Don’t worry… seek first the Kingdom of God.”
When we’re seeking first His Kingdom, we don’t worry.
So the question I ended up asking myself was, am I building His Kingdom or mine?
Heidi Baker said it best when she said often we try to compartmentalise our lives.
Family over here. Church over there. Work here. Quiet time over there. But everything, everything about us, has to be Jesus.
Family- Jesus. Work- Jesus. Church- Jesus. Quiet time- Jesus.
I once heard of a christian business man saying his belief in Jesus had nothing to do with his business, because “business was business!”
At first I judged that man and thought- on what universe do you reside in dude! How can you operate like that?
But I believe most of us operate like that. The only time we’re truly encountering Jesus is in those moments we “reserve” for Him.
The rest is our doing- our “own thang”.
And sometimes, even when it comes to ministry- this can happen- and does.
Not just in ministry or business, but in our relationships with others, our families…
Are we raising our children for us or for Him?
In our marriages, are we operating with our spouse for us or for Him?
There is no good thing You bring to Jesus that He’s unable to multiply to bless You.
When it’s in your hand, it’s small. And often pathetic and far less than what you want. The struggle never ends. But when it’s for Him- the joy YOU will enjoy as a result is remarkable.
The broken things, He sometimes fixes, other times He makes makes brand new, other times He replaces them completely with something else. But all of it is beautiful.
God asks us to involve Him in everything– make Him the centre of everything- because He knows that everything in His hands becomes an inexplicable miracle.
In my Beautiful Series Event journey I’d never felt a shift from being utterly, and totally focused on God, to being worried about this or that. Yet the shift had happened. And the worry was a clear sign it had.
Never in The Scriptures do you ever find Jesus worrying.
Even in the garden, just before He was tortured and crucified- no where, in any of the Gospels will you find: “And Jesus worried.”
Jesus had a heart.
And what a heart He had! He had feelings. He felt sad. He would mourn. He wept.
I love how John Eldridge puts it when he says, “Life affected Jesus”.
In his Beautiful Outlaw teaching, Eldridge speaks about Jesus going away, to be alone, after his cousin John is murdered.
Life affected Jesus. But He didn’t worry. Because, through disappointments, through betrayals, through solitude and times of hardships and pain none of us will ever endure- Jesus kept His eyes on His Father’s Kingdom.
And He didn’t worry.
Imagine one of your dearest friends sick and dying. You know, without a shadow of doubt, that you are able to heal him. But God tells you, Not now.
Jesus got word of Lazarus being sick.
If the condition of Lazarus wasn’t so severe, there wouldn’t have been reason to tell Jesus.
But Jesus didn’t worry. And He didn’t rush off to heal Lazarus. No. Jesus stayed where He was. And waited. For a Word from His Father. For two days!
We read these stories now and don’t allow ourselves to dwell in them.
Would I have waited two days to see to a friend who desperately needed me? Would I have stay where I was and allowed him to die while I possessed the power to heal him?
You see when we ask it like that- most of us would battle. Jesus didn’t.
Because He knew what would happen. Because His eyes were not on the situation. They were on His Father’s Kingdom.
His mind wasn’t on Lazarus (who He loved very much) or on what people would say- or even what his disciples would think of him.
Imagine what his disciples must’ve been thinking!
Dude! Your friend is dying! And you’re just going to chill here for another two days!
Jesus waited. For a Word from His Father.
Sometimes, even if the mission we’re on, is given to us by God and our intention is to do it faithfully for Him, we can pervert the process and the result if our eyes, even so much as glance away from Daddy’s Kingdom.
“Don’t worry… Seek Ye first the Kingdom of God.”
Kim Walker of Jesus Culture puts this beautifully when she sings, “How can I expect to walk without You? When every move that Jesus made was in surrender…”
Shooooooo!
May we live in absolute surrender!
Our eyes fixed on Daddy’s Kingdom.
This is the only way we live victorious, without worry.
I send You His Love,
Hannah