Day 86 - Found
Scripture focus: you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. 1 Thessalonians 1:9 NIV
Yesterday I was worrying over the sad possibility that we might not realize our lost-ness, get confused by our credentialing, and forget to look for a way out in our time living in the valley of the shadow of darkness. Today, I'm concerned that, once free, we forget why someone went to all the trouble to hunt us down and carry us into the light. Search and rescue missions don't end with the retrieval of the lost. The party that ensues when lost people are found is a kick-off event, a grand opening - a new beginning.
"Somewhere down the road, many of us either lose our ambition, or we come to believe that ambition is a bad thing. We were told that if we are going to be truly spiritual, we have to free ourselves from all ambition. The tragedy, of course, is that this is not true. Not only is ambition a good thing; it is also a God thing. It is God who has placed within you the fuel of ambition. You cannot live the life God created you to live without being ambitious. The reason your heart leaps when you see greatness is that your spirit is drawn to it. The reason we can experience the vicarious exhilaration of a great victory or an amazing accomplishment is that the human spirit resonates with greatness. " Soul Cravings, Erwin McManus, entry 6, Destiny.
Unfortunately, we get so confused about who we are and where we're going that our inner urge to excel, our stress over presumed "failures," our broken pleasure center and its nasty by-product (cravings) - often leaves us both fearful and frantic. So may I offer a word or two (ok, three) of advice? We are created with a sense of God-given destiny. But we must be careful. In our youthfulness, confusion, and ignorance - we might be tempted to hijack the dream, and limit its scope. In our fear and frantic frustration, we might rush after the only dream we think we can achieve - on our own. What a waste. I'd like to suggest we try something different.
Knowing that we are created by God with a destiny, it makes sense that the better we know God and the more intimate our connection with Him, the less likely we are to stumble into a delusion and end up side-tracked from his grand epic adventure for us.
When overcome with anxiety, it is time to pause to prepare. Anxiety is the fuel that a stressed out mid-brain runs on. (Remember - when stressed, the brain erects virtual walls around the mid-brain, putting us in an anhedonic state. Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure. Stressed out people end up with blown out brain circuitry. They lose the ability to notice all the good stuff. They feel perpetually uneasy. The brain literally gets shut off from itself - with only the mid-brain calling the shots. It gets lonely, and craves stimulation, so it begins "craving" something to get back into the game of life. These cravings are specific to learned behaviors that have worked to stimulate a response of pleasure in the past. I crave crunchy peanut butter and chocolate. Other people crave a cigarette, or a shopping spree, or a new car.)
Our big dream is waiting for us. We won't get there by freaking out. After we pause to prepare, we first must prepare by learning how to exercise the gift of faith. We must build trust with our heavenly Father, learning to rely on him to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Oh, stuff will get done. But it is much better to enter into God's prevailing purposes for us than to flounder around in a sea of possibility, hoping the next "new thing" that our mid-brain thinks up to crave will lead to peace and contentment.
Recommended reading: Deuteronomy 4 and 5 in the morning; Proverbs 12 in the evening
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