A Whole New World

I love Disney princess movies. I grew up watching sweet movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin. I think my favorite part of any princess movie has to be the music. Even as an adult, I have been known to randomly burst into a Disney song when the mood hits. I love it! As I type this post, I am listening to Disney Radio on Pandora.

 

I love the song "A Whole New World" from the movie Aladdin. Just before the song begins, Aladdin, disguised as Prince Ali, flies up on his magic carpet to the balcony where Princess Jasmine is standing with her pet Tiger (how cool would it be to have a pet tiger?!) He asks her if she'd like to go for a ride on his magic carpet. She asks him, "Is it safe?"

Aladdin reaches down his hand to Jasmine and replies, "Sure. Do you trust me?" At that moment, Jasmine recognizes Aladdin for who he really is, although she doesn't reveal it just yet. So, she agrees to go on a magic carpet ride with him.

 

Through the song, Aladdin and Jasmine fly through the sky over the city and have an amazing adventure. They soar through clouds and up to the stars. They fly with birds and among a herd of running horses as the song sweetly tells of how Aladdin can open her eyes to a whole new world she's never known before.

 

But, what if she hadn't recognized him? Would she have trusted him and gone off on a magic carpet ride with him? I don't know how the story would have turned out if Jasmine hadn't known who Aladdin was, but I'm pretty sure she would have missed out on that amazing adventure through the clouds.

 

Over the past few days, I've noticed a theme that keeps popping up in the scriptures I'm studying and the books I'm reading, things I've been seeing on social media, and conversations I've been having with friends. Even my own blog posts this week have had a common topic-GO. And not just to go, but to go without knowing where the path is leading.

 

I know that God is asking to me step out and do some things that take me out of my comfort zone. I can see on the horizon opportunities that He is placing before me to step into the calling and the purpose He has planned for me. But I hesitate. I hold back because I can't see where it's going to lead. I can see the next steps, but I can't see the end of road.

 

But, I know He's standing there, like Aladdin on his magic carpet, holding out his hand and asking me, "Do you trust me?" He's waiting for me to recognize Him for who He is, take his hand, a let Him take me on an adventure. All I have to do is say yes.

 

There's a story in Acts of someone God called to "go" without revealing where the path was going to lead. Acts chapter 9 tells the story of Saul's conversion. Read it, it's a cool story.

The verse that stands out to me as I think about being called to go is Acts 9:6. It says,

"Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do."

 

God didn't give Saul/Paul an itinerary for the way his life was going to change and the journey he was  going to be on for the rest of his life. He didn't sit Saul down and tell him the game plan before he put him into the game. Saul was told to "go" first and then he would be told what to do. He did and he was.

Heavenly Father,
Help me, Lord, to be willing to get up and go when you call me. Forgive me for the times I have hesitated and held back out of my desire to be in control. I want to trust you to lead me even when I can't see where the path is leading. Show me the next step to take and give the courage to take it. I know you will not let me fall!
Amen

Go where they are!

I remember when my kids were little; when I had two toddlers, a preschooler, and an elementary child. Four little ones under the age of 10. Back then, every time I turned around, there was a child underfoot. They always wanted to be where I was, doing what I was doing. Rarely did they get far from my sight.

The older they have gotten, though, the further away they have begun to venture. I now have two teenagers, a middle schooler, and an older elementary child. It’s not unusual, even when we’re all home together, for us to all be in different places. I’ll be in my bedroom studying, one child will be working at the kitchen table, one in the living room on the couch, one in their bedroom, and one outside.

Our house isn’t huge, but when we all get separated into our different spaces, talking to one another is an issue. If I’m in the kitchen and Cheyenne is in her bedroom playing her guitar, there is no way she’s going to hear me calling her for schoolwork. Having an intercom in my house would be so handy! But since we don’t, I use the next best thing-the other children. I have four walking talking intercoms at my disposal.

So, I’ll say to one of my children, “Go tell Cheyenne it’s time for her to do Language Arts,” thinking that will save me some steps and I can have a couple extra seconds to throw in some laundry or put some things in the dishwasher. But, somehow, my children always misinterpret what I said. They miss one key word-GO!

Instead of walking down the hallway to the bedroom, opening the door, and calmly giving my message, the child will stand right next to me, without moving a single step, and yell, “CHEYENNE!!!! MOM SAID TO COME DO LANGUAGE ARTS!”

Nice.

And my reply to them is always the same, “There’s no way she’s going to hear you from here. If you need to tell Cheyenne something, go to where she is.”

As Christians, I think we tend to do this a lot in trying to get the Gospel message out to the people who need to hear it. We spend week after week standing in our church auditoriums yelling out “Hey, Jesus loves you and wants to be your Savior.” Our message is exactly what they need to hear. But they can’t hear it…because they aren’t there. They aren’t coming to us.

If we want to reach people outside the church with the message of the Gospel and show them the love of Jesus, we are going to have to go to where they are. It may be at work or at the grocery store or your child’s soccer game. It may be that you talk with them at the park while the kids are playing or as you wait at dance class with the other moms.

It reminds me of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts chapter 8. Acts 8:29-30 says,

The Spirit told Phillip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’ Then Phillip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Phillip asked.

Phillip didn’t wait for the man to come to him. Phillip went to where the man was. If you continue reading the story, the Ethiopian man asked Phillip about a passage of scripture he didn’t understand and Phillip was able to explain the Gospel to him. The man believed and was baptized.

But it didn’t happen because Phillip stood at a distance yelling the message at the man. It happened because Phillip WENT to him.

Father,

Help me to see the opportunities you put in front of me to not just stand back and wait for someone to come to me to hear about you, but to GO to where they are. I know there are people around me all the time who need to hear about you who may never come into my church or come up and ask me. Help me to see them. Help me to be willing to step out of my comfort zone and meet them where they are. I don’t want to stand back and yell at people from a distance, I want to share your love with them up close. Give me the wisdom and the courage to allow you to lead me to the people who need to hear.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen

The Puzzle

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but I am an only child. Growing up, it was just my dad, my mom, and me. From the time I was in about 4^th grade on, we lived on a busy street in a neighborhood where there weren’t very many other kids. The closest friend lived about 3 blocks away. Both of my parents worked, so after school, I stayed home by myself for a couple of hours until they came home during the school year and all day most days in the summer. I spent a lot of time by myself.

I’m not at all saying this was necessarily a bad thing. It had its pros and cons. One of the good things that came from being left alone a lot is that I learned to entertain myself. Those were the days before cell phones and internet access, so I actually had to find things to do on my own. I did watch TV some and play video games some (Super Mario anyone?). But more often than that, I did other things. I listened to music a lot (on cassette tapes), I read, I wrote, I played with my toys, and I made up games to play. I knew several different versions of solitaire and even invented ways to play Monopoly and Battleship by myself (I always won!).

Something I have always enjoyed doing when I have time to spend by myself is jigsaw puzzles. I love starting with a bunch of pieces that look like nothing on their own and putting them all together to make a big finished picture. I love the way each piece has to fit in a certain place and if you get something in the wrong spot, the whole puzzle won’t work. I love when there is a missing piece and I have to try several different ones that look like they might fit before I find the right one. I love the excitement of the feeling when you finally find the right piece and it just clicks right into place and fits perfectly.

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to teach lots of kids about doing puzzles, my own kids and students I had when I was teaching. I like that the procedure is the same-sort the “edge” pieces from the “inside” pieces, put together the outside frame of the puzzle, then fill in the middle. If you don’t sort the pieces first, you waste a lot of time digging through to find the edge pieces. Trying to start in the middle is much harder because you don’t have the perimeter to go by the make sure you stay within the boundaries of the picture. It works much better if you do it in order.

Another thing that is very helpful to me when I’m trying to figure out if I have the pieces in the right places is the box. Almost all puzzles come in a box that has the complete picture on the front. If not, then they usually have a paper inside the box with the picture on it. That way, you can look at the piece in your hand, compare all the little details on it with the example picture and see better where it fits into the big picture. Often I will use the picture to help me sort the inside pieces by their coloration to make it even easier to see where they fit.

Sometimes, I really wish God would give me the box for the puzzle of my life. If only I could see how everything was going to play out, making decisions would be so much easier. I would know for sure whether I put each piece in the right place. I could compare the choice I was about to make with the big picture and see whether or not it fit. I wouldn’t have to fear making the wrong choice or moving in the wrong direction. I would know where I was going and what it was going to look like when I got there.

But that’s not the way He does it. God doesn’t show me the whole picture. He gives me just a piece at a time. I think He does this partly because if I saw what was coming in the future, it would scare me to death. If I could see the hard things that were ahead of me, I wouldn’t want to move forward and go through them, even though they are necessary to get me to where I need to be.

 

I was reading in Hebrews 11 yesterday. It’s about faith. The chapter goes through a list of people of faith-Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and others. When I got to the part about Abraham, there was a verse that stuck out to me and got me thinking about puzzles.

 

Hebrews 11:8 says,

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”

That last part is where it really hit me. Abraham obeyed and went even though he didn’t know where he was going. God didn’t reveal the whole picture to Abraham. He only gave him one piece. He told him to GO. And Abraham went. Not seeing how this piece fit into the end result, but trusting that it did.

Too many times in my life, God tells me to do something, to take a step, to put in a piece of the puzzle, but I resist. I want to know why and how it all fits. I want to see what’s coming after this step. I want to see how the picture is going to look at the end before I start to put it together.

But He’s asking me to trust. He wants me to step out and be obedient to what He’s asking me to do, one step at a time, without knowing what’s ahead. That’s called faith. I have to move ahead into what He’s calling me to do and trust that He will make the pieces fit.

Because even though I can’t see the big picture, He can. Not only that, but He is the artist who created the picture from the beginning. He knows exactly how all the pieces fit.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you, Lord, for your wisdom in not revealing to me the whole picture at once. You give me just a piece at a time and ask me to trust you to make it all fit together the way it is supposed to. Forgive me, Lord, for the times I have resisted when you’ve asked me to move because I want to see and control the way things happen in my life. I know that your plan for me is greater than anything I could do on my own. Help me to trust that you see the big picture and that it will be exactly what you created it to be.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen