Last weekend, I drove from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah. On the road to Salt Lake, I was reminded of when I drove from California to Denver and started a new life. The world was wide open and I was free, because everything that defined me I left in California. One of the greatest lesson I learned from that experience was not to let the current circumstances of my life define me.
It’s easy to build an identity defined by our jobs, our schools, our friends, where we live, and the things we can physically see in our lives. The danger there is that we lose sight of the reality that “God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us” {Ephesians 3:20, NIV}. There is unimaginably more available to us than what we can see manifested in our lives today, and what we can see in ourselves right now.
Jesus said...
"You're tied down to the mundane; I'm in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I'm living on other terms. I told you that you were missing God in all this. You're at a dead end. If you won't believe I am who I say I am. You're missing God in your lives."
{John 8:23-24, MSG}
It's easy to get tied down in routine and forget that the world is wide open and we are free. If God is who He says He is, then there is so much more in store for us than what is evidenced in our lives today.
Since September of last year, I switched careers, got into Miss USA, and [re]started this site. This time next year, I'll be bolder and I'll burn brighter, because everyday we wake up and fight for our futures…we get stronger. We can’t plan the future and we can’t see it coming, but we can stay focused on what we believe.
It doesn’t matter that day by day we can't see ourselves growing and we can't feel it. It's what we believe that makes us strong, not what we feel. It’s what we believe about ourselves and our lives that defines us, not what we can see.
Sometimes in life we are looking straight up the side of a mountain...
The Bible is clear, we are to have faith that can move moutains.
{Matthew 17:20}
Keep looking up.
Do not be stopped.
In the earliest story of Jesus, He says “I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?” {Luke 2:49, MSG}. In the last story of Jesus, He ends His life with the words, "It is finished." (John 19:30, NIV}. From the bookends of the life our Savior and our example, we can be certain that Jesus never lost sight of the fact that He was here on a mission about His Father's business. We are also here on that same mission and we're left with His example that shows us how to stay focused, keep fighting, and finish strong.
Clear eyes...set on the Lord.
Full hearts...set on the Lord.
Can't lose.
Keep fighting...Love wins,
Lisamarie
