Encouragement

I Was Justified, and I Was Wrong

Have you ever made a decision for your life and been totally convinced it was right only to find out you were wrong? At the end of last year, I was convinced that this year I needed more down time for me. And I was justified! Last year was hard. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and both emotionally and physically depleted. This was not a want; this was a need. I needed more “me” time.

But I was wrong.

More time for me is what I wanted. But it is not what God wanted. He wanted me to spend more time with Him!

What’s more is He made it very clear to me. Within days of laying out my fantastic plan for my year, two things happened back-to-back. First, Mark and I were at a conference where we got to preview a powerful movie called War Room which will be released in late August. There were three central themes in the movie that really hit home with me. The movie follows the story of a woman whose family is falling apart. She meets an odd older woman who befriends her and shares her “war room” with her–a record of prayers for all the people she has prayed for–a legacy of love. 

Ah, I remember thinking if I were to die (remember, I have lots of heart issues so I was not being morbid, just realistic) would my children find such a record of love? A record of my heart for them poured out in prayer? 

No, they wouldn’t. I was convicted. I needed to spend more time praying.
 
The second experience that God used to soften my heart toward Him and His desire for me was a Christmas coffee where a woman named Betsy Leslie shared a system she uses to intentionally pray for people by writing them down and marking the card every time she prays. She had notecards with hundreds of marks on them. Another legacy of love.

A plan was forming in my brain–a new plan for the year. The only part of my big “plan for me” this year that had anything to do with God was that I needed to read the Bible more and memorize some verses. What if I actually chose verses to pray for people? How efficient is that?

Suddenly I realized, my selfish justification for “me time” was what I wanted, not what God wanted. I was justified, but I was wrong. I’ve found that there’s usually this tension between what I desire and what God desires for me. And it goes like this…

  • I think I need something or deserve something.
  • God shows me something better that He desires for me.
  • I become convicted and have to confront the tension between what I desire and what He desires.
  • And then, I have to choose–His way or mine.

I have learned that His way is better. Either…

  • I make plans for what I want, seek insight for what is right, confront conviction about what is wrong, and accept what He wants for me.

Or

  • I make plans for what I want, seek insight for what is right, disregard conviction about what is wrong, and harden my heart to God’s voice and follow my own path.

We must choose to either open our eyes and open our heart to conviction or close our eyes and harden our hearts. There are few things scarier to me than what can happen to someone who hardens his or her heart. The Bible gives a striking example in Exodus with Pharaoh who hardened his heart to God when Moses and Aaron came before him to plead on behalf of the Israelites. In Exodus 7, Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh with the message that God had given them. Pharaoh asked for a miracle to prove that they were speaking on behalf of God, which they performed for him. But he hardened his heart and would not listen to God’s words. In the following chapters, he continued to harden his heart, despite seeing clearly the works of God, until eventually the Bible says that God hardened his heart. After several times of ignoring the words of the Lord, Pharaoh lost even the choice to have a heart that was open to the voice of God.

Yikes. That’s scary! I definitely do NOT want my heart to become hardened. 

Long story. But in this case, I confronted the tension between what God wanted for me and what I wanted for me. I am learning verses and, purposefully, praying and I am so happy–I love seeing the record of dots growing. I don’t pray every day, my record is not perfect, but I have a plan (the dots are prayers!).

07-30-15-susan-blog

The movie I mentioned above, War Room, has a 30 Day Prayer Challenge.  If you download the challenge, you are automatically entered to win four tickets to the movie release on August 28th and a $100 Visa gift card. Perhaps you should take the challenge and confront the tension between what you want and what God wants for you 🙂

Print Friendly, PDF & Email