Why Have I inviteD you here?
I watched The Hobbit again the other night. One of my favorite quotes is from the beginning when Gandalf approaches Bilbao to go on an adventure. Bilbao is NOT interested. He has grown comfortable and loves his little life of ease. He replies, "I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today!” He calls them “nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!” And yet, he soon finds himself launching out of his cozy home and racing over the hills, shouting, “I’m going on an adventure!”
This adventure is simply… life. The choice is whether you want to go on the life adventure God has for you or choose the one you know… the one that might be more comfortable. Often, fear seeks to halt us in our tracks and stop all forward motion on this adventure God is calling us to.
Will there be pain and trouble? Absolutely.
Will it be easy? Not all the time.
But we grab our Father's hand, seek the voice of our King Jesus, trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and off we go!
Journey with me to the Promised Land!
It’s been a wild ride - it always is when you’re walking with God - and I wouldn’t change anything! We’ve certainly been on an adventure. Through all the hills and valleys, mountains and deserts, the Lord has helped me to define my personal Promised Land… my Hebron!
It’s not Egypt or Goshen, even though it was comfortable for a time. God provided in ways that weren’t obvious at first but felt like interrogation lights once I noticed them. Those lights seemed to shine their light on the path to get up and OUT… there’s an adventure to be had! The comfort and God’s Provision in that place were hard to leave, but I knew then that it would be harder if we didn’t obey God and go! Like all comfortable places, they can become … TOO comfortable. Before you know it, you find out you’re a slave to the system, to your own desires (which, by the way, are always less than what God has for you), or to the comfort itself, which is one of the most common strongholds we encounter!
It wasn’t the wilderness—or, in my case, the desert! But throughout this adventure, we will embrace the lessons learned here. We are going somewhere… going to the next level, and those lessons will be the stepping stones that help us grow into all God has called us to be!
We’re going to loose the noose of religion that so quietly and stealthily chokes the life and hope out of us. We’ll learn that our mindset matters and how to shift out of a scarcity one to an abundance mindset!
Simply stated, we’re on a journey to find freedom - TRUE FREEDOM!
Let’s go!