God's Good Pleasure
Over the weekend we hosted several friends at our house. The weather was perfect so we spent the majority of Saturday outside playing different yard games. At one point we pulled out Spikeball – a game that is pretty confusing to explain, but once you begin playing (or watching someone else play) you start to get the general idea. While watching friends play, I was reminded of my first experience with Spikeball.
We had made plans to go to the beach one Saturday. We were planning what needed to be brought – towels, sunscreen, football – when Mitchell (then boyfriend, now husband) mentioned Spikeball. I had never heard of the game before and certainly had no idea how to play, so I woke up the morning of our beach trip and watched tutorial after tutorial on how to play the game. It was in that moment that I, and everyone else, realized the depth of my competitive nature. But I also realized something pretty significant about myself that found its way in most areas of my life – I wouldn’t do something if I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t fail.
I will be very honest here. I have sensed God stirring something new in me as of late. With our transition from Alpharetta to Newnan has come a freedom that I haven’t felt in years. A freedom that lets God actually do whatever He wants to do and align myself with Him instead of the other way around. A freedom that requires Him to show up and do what I can’t.
For so long I have wanted God to align Himself with me – my plans for my career, my gifts and how they work themselves out, my ministry, my family, my friendships, and my timing of it all. Quite frankly, I think that is how most of us operate. And when He doesn’t work within our narrow window we begin to turn to that which we think can suit our desires more efficiently. It has been this way for a long time –
“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’” – Exodus 32:1
Since the inception of this space on the internet I have felt a pressure to create content that fits within the mold of “Christian blogging.” To be a person that has it all figured out and puts it in flowery, poetic language. I’ve stayed at arms length in my writing for fear of failure, ridicule, and misunderstanding.
Rarely have I ever risked the seemingly insignificant for God. Yes, there are moments – milestone moments – that I have risked everything. But isn’t that what day-in day-out obedience is? Risking comfortability, risking certainty, risking failure. I had a friend tell me recently that if something is worth doing well, it is also worth doing poorly. If it’s worth doing at all, get out there and do it. I think this is what Paul had in mind when he charged the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” – Philippians 2:12-13
This is the freedom I feel – God’s good pleasure. And this is the corner of the world that I have to work out my salvation. I want to faithfully steward the little bit I’ve been given, and I think this is how I do that. So, I’m hoping to be on here a bit more as I walk with God and share what He is teaching me and align my gifts with His purpose rather than my own. It’s probably going to be messy, because that is exactly what I am – a hot mess. And I’m finally tired of pretending that I’m not or being too afraid to fail. Who’s with me?
Where/what are you needing to risk to experience God’s good pleasure?