I've been thinking over the weekend because of the past two to three weeks, about giving up one thing to gain another. Sometimes we give up things we had, because something looks better, and we start blindly chasing it, just to find we liked what we had better, we just wanted something to happen that didn't and we gave it up. It's like the song by Pink Floyd, I was talking about the other day, that says "Did you exchange, a walk in part of the war, for a lead role in a cage."
I'm working on taking a step out of the boat. In order to do so I would need faith. In order to do so I would need to make sure that I'm hearing God clearly. I'm an orange personality. What that means is that I have lots of idea, and when I say lots I mean like hundreds in a day. I'm an entrepeneur, and what that means is that my drive is to continually strive for something more. To be challenged with new things. My downfall is that I don't always have the natural ability to see to the end.
My track record will prove a good one and that when I'm determined to do something, I will succeed. Especially when someone tells me I can't. Just ask my Mom, she gave me a dating period of 2 months with my husband. I've made it almost 25 yrs.
When I look around though, I see people who are miserable in their lives and they feel stuck there. I know what that is like, I know what it feels like to see those around you getting things handed to them, or people controlling people to get their way, or stepping on whoever is in their path and it's usually you. I wonder if you've given up on your dreams and why? Do you honestly feel like you can't make it?
I think of the story in the Bible of when Jesus heals the man at Bethesda. The man has been dealing with his sickness or struggles for like 38 years and he lays by this pool at Bethesda that the angels stir up the waters and everyone runs in at that time and gets healed. But this guy waits for someone to put him in because he has given up, and no one will. See he might have potential, but no one sees it, they just walk right past him, they walk over him to get what they want and no one stopped to help this man. BUT GOD SEES HIM. God confronts him and asks him "Do you want to get well?". See he's asking him to look again at how he wants to live his life. He brings back the seed of hope. "Then he says, "Get up" Do it!
Friends, no matter what your dreams are....you can reach them. You will face challenges, but they are not road blocks.
Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
John 5:5-9