No, not that "G spot". I'm talking about the God spot. That's the place inside every one of us that can only be satisfied by His presence. The place where nothing else will do. Nothing.
You can try to anesthesize the pain caused by its lack using drugs, food, sex, alcohol, things, people, cigarettes, power, money, knowledge, children, education, reason, adrenaline, or whatever else suits your fancy, but in the end it all comes down to one thing: it's called the God spot because He's the only One who fits in there exactly right. Substitutes are for schools, sugared soft drinks (and sometimes not even then), and athletic games, so don't waste your time and energy.
You don't have to get crazy about it. I'm not saying you have to give up everything you think is fun in order to get what I'm talking about, although it's possible your definition of fun will change. You don't have to pull out that 25 pound family Bible that's been covered in dust at your grandmomma's house since the day you were brought home from the hospital and start dragging it with you everywhere you go. You don't have to clean up, start subtracting things from your life, or adding weird things in. This isn't about measuring or comparing yourself against anyone else.
But if you're...
searching
wondering
thinking
wishing
hoping
hurting
doubtful
desperate
or ready to give up...
why not give it a shot? Just once (or just once more), fill your G spot with something real. Something organic. Something pure. Something that'll quench your thirsty soul like nothing else has or can.
Tres Dias is a 3 day non-denominational Christian conference. It’s for single or married folks, and is set up so that married couples go one weekend after the other; men first. I went this past weekend; Moose the weekend before.
Attendees don’t necessarily hear something new so much as hear it in a way we’ve never heard it before. Communion is done every day, in ways I’ve never seen it being done before. It was really thought-provoking & full of power and meaning.
There are 36 attendees on a weekend, and it’s designed to help you have a fresh encounter with God. They have speakers, skits, and singing. It takes team of over 80 people to serve the needs of 36.
In the room where talks are given, you are assigned seats at tables, and each table is named after a male or female character in the Bible, depending on whose weekend it is. You sit in the same seat at the same table each day with the same group.
I was assigned the chair next to a lady named Josephine at the table of Elizabeth. Josephine is my grandmother’s name, and Elizabeth is my mom’s.
Before each meal, a song of blessing is sung, and after each, a song of thanks. Both are sung to the tune of Edelweiss. And to sing them, everyone stands up, links arms, and rocks back and forth while singing. My grandfather’s (Papa) favorite song was Edelweiss, and my mom’s side of the family is German. Linking arms while singing together has a really special memory/feeling to me.
Do I really need to tell you how strongly I felt the spirit of our family’s legacy of love all weekend long? Didn’t think so.
When Olllie (one of the speakers) told us with all sincerity and passion in his voice that our Daddy loves us so much, I was immediately taken back to all the times Papa told me he loved me and how concretely I believed him. I never, ever doubted His love for me; not even once. I always knew Papa was pleased with me, even after I married my first husband (and if anything would’ve tested parental love for me, marrying him was it). I identified as a teenager that I believed God loved me the way my dad loved me…distantly and non-emotionally, but I soon came to realize that belief wasn’t true. But this weekend I wondered why as a little girl I would choose to associate a distant, non-emotional kind of love with God’s love for me rather than a real, never-changing, always present and passionate love for me, like Papa had always shown me. I still haven’t figured the answer to that question. I know Dad loved me in the only way he knew how, but I knew Papa loved me unconditionally and with a love that never wavered. This weekend, the connection with God’s love and Papa’s love was solidified even more strongly. I know my Mom and Mama have always loved me (never doubted that, either), but there is something really, really special about a Daddy’s love for his baby girl. And while I might be 42 years old with grown children of my own, I will always be God’s little girl, whose Daddy is always pleased with her. This fact is true whether I feel it, like it, want it, or acknowledge it.
Seeing all those women working so hard to take care of us (you’re not allowed to get anything for yourself), gave me a new love and understanding of the body of Christ. It was a weekend that exemplified God’s love and service to/for us. I’d seen it before in smaller pieces, but it was so huge this weekend, I was completely & utterly humbled.
The theme for the weekend was “His love is unending, His grace is amazing”. I heard that over and over all weekend long. If it wasn’t ingrained in my head before, it is now.
Peace.
To recap the truths that would revolutionize our decision making processes:
1) God knows what’s best for you better than you know what’s best for you
2) Everybody you lay eyes on is a person for whom Christ died
3) God is up to something in the world and you are invited to play a part
Ready for the fourth?
- The single greatest obstacle to living a breakaway life is that when we wake up, we don’t set out on a truth quest.
If I bought a new car and told you I bought it because it’s safer than the Trailblazer, that’s crap. That’s not why I’d buy a new car. I’d be buying a new car because my ‘wanter’ kicked in and I ‘obeyed my thirst’ (no, Sprite isn’t paying me for that plug). And I’d get something with heated leather seats, an in-dash multiple CD player, GPS, MP3 capability, and a sun roof. And that’s just for starters. But buying a new car would only make me happy until I got the new payment and realized how much further in debt I am; then I wouldn’t be happy anymore. So which is it? Did buying the new car make me happy or not?
The thing is, when we make excuses to justify our actions, the people we tell don’t believe it. And we don’t believe it when they tell us their excuses, either. But we convince ourselves it’s true, and our self-deceit is our biggest hindrance to living a breakaway life.
Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? We already heard it once earlier in the series, and here it is again: you can’t trust your heart. If we pursue happiness rather than truth, God’s will will always seem extreme. When we chase truth, God’s will doesn’t seem so severe. In fact, when we seek truth, we’ll realize God’s will brings peace and contentment rather than the unrest that often follows carrying out our own will.
Joe wasn’t trying to change anybody’s behavior; his point was that we aren’t always honest with ourselves. He challenged us with these questions:
- Why am I doing this, really?
- If someone in my circumstances came to me for advice, what course of action would I recommend?
In 1 Chronicles 29, David’s son Solomon had been chosen to build the temple and it was a huge undertaking. David gave his resources to the buiding of the temple: gold, iron, silver, wood, bronze, onyx, turquoise, stone and marble. After he gave a huge amount (the Bible lists the specifics but I’m not going to), he gave his personal treasures to be used as well. Then he asked the assembly if any of them would be willing to give as well. Everyone gave willingly.
David never saw the temple built, but he gave a lot of resources to make it happen. Ditto for the folks under him. And the Bible says they did it willingly. Sidebar: I had to sit and let the principle of giving even though you might not see the result sink in. The point is that God owns it all. We can call stuff ours, but the truth is we’re just the managers of that stuff.
This is where it gets a little weird. Money is one of those things that makes people a little crazy or uncomfortable or trippy when it comes up. But money is just a tool; nothing more, nothing less. Most folks don’t think they have enough. Others seem to have an endless supply. But everybody has strong beliefs about how it should be managed. I’ve heard some say that you have to have money in order to have something to worry about managing. But that’s not true. There’s a Biblical principle that says if you manage what you have well, you’ll be given more to manage. And that’s pretty much true in all of life; employees who manage their tasks well are often given more tasks. Why do we complain about being given more responsibility at work to manage, but never about being given more money to manage? What’s up with that? I’ve seen people with plenty of money somehow manage to have nothing to show for all they’ve made, and others who have made very little, yet stretched it quite far. Most people fall somewhere in the middle.
What really stood out to me was David’s giving out of his kingly resources and then giving out of his personal accumulation. OK, I’ll bare my soul a little here: it seems that when I feel comfortable with what’s in my bank account, I tend to be more generous, but when I feel I have very little, I tend to become more stingy. But if I’m just a conduit, what am I worried about? God can give me some of His stuff to manage, and then move it right on along into someone else’s hands to manage for a while or maybe even for forever. Shouldn’t I care more about the way I manage His stuff, rather than how much of it I manage?
This week’s truth:
Sounds overly simplistic, doesn’t it? Sounds small, huh? Like it’s not that earth shattering. Like the sixth grade school play, right? Nu-uh. Not this. And definitely not when you read Psalm 33:8-11 (New International Version)
Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. (hint, ‘ALL’ means that none are left out!)
Warning! All your plans are candidates to be cancelled and He might not check with you first. But His plan CANNOT be stopped. No matter what people try to do to stop it. No matter what they say. No matter who they tell. No matter the circumstance. No matter the money situation. No matter how many times you screwed it up before. No. Matter. What.
If you don’t chase God’s plan rather than your own, when you get what you thought you wanted, you’ll discover it wasn’t worth the chase.
That’s freakin’ huge. At least it is to me, cause I’ve chased a lot of stuff that really wasn’t worth my time and energy.
God’s plan is gonna happen. And His plan for you is good. He said so in Jeremiah. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Have ya read “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren? That book confirmed what I’ve felt in my gut most of my life; that we’re meant for something big. Something important. Something more than we ever could’ve imagined on our own. That we’re meant to do something that’ll last forever; long after we’re gone.
Do you want to breakaway? Read Rick’s book.If you don’t have a copy, let me know and I’ll get one to you. Message me. It’s that powerful. And your life is that important.
When you were young, you wanted to blaze a trail (I still do, that’s why I drive a TRAILBLAZER!). But what happened? You woke up one morning and realized you’re nowhere near where you wanted to be. Culture tells us to runaway rather than to breakaway. Can the whole trajectory of our lives change in a moment?
The second life changing truth Joe shared this week is this:
That includes the well dressed lady you saw in the grocery story, the dirty, smelly guy you saw at McDonald’s, the kid with the mohawk, tattoos and piercings standing in front of you in line at the gas station, and the one whose reflection you see in the mirror every day.
Simple economics says that value is determined by what we’re willing to pay for something. Since God wants to have a relationship with us, He sent His Son to pay the price for our sin (which is death), so we could be with Him. The value of our souls was worth the cost of His Son’s death. Yeah, sit there and let that sink in for a second…I’ll wait.
OK, so that means the framework of every relationship we have needs to be based on the understanding that God valued every person you come into contact with so much that He died for him or her. God doesn’t love us because we’re valuable. We’re valuable because He loves us. Has anybody else ever offered to give up their life to save yours?
In Breakaway 1, I told you I’d share 4 truths that would revolutionize your thinking about decisions. Here it is; simple, yet threatening at the same time:
“God knows what’s best for you better than you know what’s best for you.”
Yeah, I know, mind boggling, huh? Not exactly.
Many people, when asked, would agree that God does indeed know what’s best for us better than we do. But are we living as if that were a core belief? I don’t think so, at least not as much as we’d like.
I remember when I made a decision that seemed best at the time, only to figure out later it was the wrong one. And other times in my life, I can think of when I wanted something to go a certain way and when it didn’t I was upset. It wasn’t long before I realized that it was better that things worked out the way they did.
If we all lived as if we believed God knew what was best for us, we’d worry less. We’d stress less. We’d fear less. And sometimes we don’t live that way because we don’t really trust Him.
Think about the last time you sat on a chair. You know, like when you sat down to check your email. God tells us to trust in Him with all our heart and not to lean on our own understanding. God wants us to trust Him the way we trust the chair is gonna hold us up when we get ready to sit in it. No scientific equations, no math, no testing or a ‘prove it to me and then I’ll believe it’ll hold me’ attitude. Just a belief that when you sat, you wouldn’t fall.
Our motivation is happiness. And since experience has already taught us that we don’t always know what makes us happy, why not rest on God? The Bible says the heart is deceitfully wicked, and because of that, we should trust God with ours.
If we don’t resolve the issue in our minds of God knowing better than we do, our outcomes will never be what they could be.
Sometimes when we reach a place in life where we want to breakaway, we end up running away instead. Is there another way to breakaway in life? What does it look like to be who you were created to be? A breakaway life is one that’s lived in sync with our Creator and how He designed us.
Romans 12:2 (The Amplified version) says: Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].
What you believe fuels your decisions, and your decisions determine your outcome. Many times we get an outcome we didn’t want, so we go back to the decision we made to figure out what went wrong. That’s good. But sometimes we may need to go back farther. For example, if you believe that gravity isn’t a real force and you make the decision to jump out of a flying plane expecting to soar like an eagle, your outcome will be bad. *Thank you, Captain Obvious.* However, if you believe correctly that gravity is a real force that will pull you back down to earth, and decide to put on a parachute BEFORE you jump, your outcome will be better. See, the decision to jump out of a flying plane isn’t bad in and of itself, as long as your belief system is on track. *Not something I would do, but, hey, to each his own.*
Renewing your mind is similar to doing a renovation project in your house. If you’ve ever done any kind of remodeling, you know there are 3 truths that usually come into play: it’s messier than you thought, it takes longer than you thought, and it costs more than you thought.
It’s the same with renovating your mind.
What are the deeply held beliefs that led me to make the decisions that brought me to this place?
In the next Breakaway blog, I will introduce the first of 4 truths that will revolutionize the decision making process.
Followers
my never-ending battle
My 411
- Eva M.
- After struggling to fit into the proverbial round hole, I figured it was more honest to embrace the natural facets of my personality: passion for God and people, off-the-wall logic and a twisted sense of humor.
I'm an Air Force wife and former homeschool mom who writes about people and relationships, my faith, and my family. I love my crazy, beautiful, mosaic life...and coffee.