Questions in My Head...

I've got some deep questions rolling around in my head. Today during the sermon, Pastor Barry asked what we would be doing in 2009 that would require faith. Are we stepping out or just living day by day going through the motions?

Last year at this time I was definitely going through the motions. Alot has changed since then. Yes, in some areas I am surely stepping out. My ministry challenges me. The possibility of failure is very real to me. I am stepping out in that I have a dream that I am hoping I am right that it is God's dream and He will bring it to pass. I want to see the kids at Lakeside Community Church not only saved but trained and reaching the community for Christ. I want them to grow up with reaching out to the unsaved for Christ and church planting and missions being as normal and expected as breathing. I don't have any earthly idea how to do that or what I am even doing. I am trying to help bring them to a destination that I haven't reached yet and so I am hoping we can go there together. I don't know the answers but I just keep trusting that God knows. I pray and walk and pray and walk. I fail...I procrastinate...I lose track of things...but for some reason God saw fit to call me to this so I will keep plugging on hoping and praying God will work through me in spite of me.

One really really big advantage I have is that, in my church, I feel very supported and encouraged. The people there...well they make me feel like I belong...that I am loved. I felt that when I was very young in my home church but now it is even more so. My family feels it too. I can tell and I see the fruit growing in them from going to a church where the Word of God is taught and preached and the people are really really real.

Let me tell you that when you mix a relationship to Christ with the love and support of other believers, your spiritual walk soars! They challenge me, they love me, they help me to look to Jesus and be more of the *me* He wants me to be. I come away from conversations with my church family wanting to read my Bible more, pray more, repent more, get right more, serve more, *be* more for Jesus. It's not about me *being* anything more than *real," but "real" in God's hands.

I am 43 years old and I have been saved a long time, since I was 11 years old actually. I've had my spiritual ups and downs. So here is the question...

Will I ever get to a place where I will be so spiritually strong in the Lord that I could do "it", whatever "it" would be that He would assign me, without all that love, support and encouragement of other believers on fire for Him? Could the joy and excitement be sustained without all those "walking partners?" What if God called us overseas? Could I really carry all that I have here with me in my heart? Or would I fizzle and grow downtrodden? Could my family and I be that for each other? Or Robin and I when the kids are grown? I really don't know the answer to that... What I am doing now feels like stepping out in faith. Will He call me to more? It only make sense that He would. Was the last desert supposed to be a desert or a neon sign telling me to move on?

I have had other times in my life before where I sense God's presence and see Him working before my eyes so strong that I know that I know that it is Him and there is no denying. I have had other times when I felt so weak and God seemed so quiet and I didn't think I would survive another day in that desert. Oh the desert is so hard. God uses it but I have no desire to go back.

God made us to need each other, to have each other. He tells us to bear one another's burdens, to speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, to use our gifts to build one another up. So maybe I am suppose to need my "walking partners".

I trust my future to God, I do. I pray that He won't let me miss something He wants me to do, because I really do want to do what He wants. I pray that I will keep growing in Him and being vital for Him and strong in my walk with Him. I am cherishing this time. I am marking it with my own sort of "memorial stone." I am hoping it lasts...but trying not to hold to anything too tightly.