Disturb us, Lord

Thursday, April 14, 2011

About 6 months ago, I was definitely searching for something more. I was happy and things were great, but when I look back at my day to day life, it was not exactly healthy. There were days I felt overwhelmed. There were days I felt like I could never catch up.

I still have days like that, but they are few and far between. And I have to credit a lot of it to my growing relationship with Christ and my experience with Chazown. Chazown is the Hebrew word for dream, revelation, or vision and the title of Craig Groeschel's book based on seeking God's vision for your life.

I had the opportunity to go through a 3 session workshop based around the book that helped me find a greater purpose for my life. It was honestly one of the hardest and most rewarding things I have ever done. And I know for a fact that the devil did not want me there, and now I can see why. Keep on reading....

Chazown is the reason I started a bible study, the reason I made a point to get the "little" day to day things in my life in order, and the reason I started this blog. At the end of the session I had a purpose statement that still remains the same:

"To continuously seek knowledge and understanding so that I can lead other women to find intentional balance and peace in day to day life while giving generously and living with authenticity and humility."

Maybe you can see where the title of my blog came from. Now, it took a long time to get that out on paper, and it has begun to mean so many more things in my life than just a bible study and a blog. The night I wrote that I had no idea a bible study or a blog would be involved in living out my Chazown, but they've become huge parts of it.

Speaking of bible study, we are now working through the Chazown experience with 18 other women who are all seeking the vision God has for their lives.

Today while Addy was playing outside and Luke was napping, I picked up my Chazown book and started to re-read it from the beginning. Here are just a few of the things that I thought some of you would like to hear from the book:

Everyone ends up somewhere, but few people end up somewhere on purpose. 

When you start to be really honest with yourself, many of us would say that we maybe had some sort of plan for our lives, but the reality is that most of us are just trying to survive the day to day. We're not heading any place in particular on purpose. We're just trying to make it by. 
But so many of us never seek God's will for our lives. We're perfectly happy coming up with our own plan and attempting to follow it, never acknowledging that God had a purpose in mind for us from the beginning. Craig points out that "the Bible makes it clear that we were designed from the start to live for a unique reason....In Psalm 139:13-16, David wrote,
You created my inmost beings; 
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me 
were written in your book 
before one of them came to be. 
He knew what He wanted your life to be like...and He invites us to seek Him in order to learn what His perfect plan is for our lives." 

I don't believe that God sent His son to die on a cross for us so that we could "just make it by." So many of us are burdened by our everyday lives, by our jobs, by the tasks at hand that need to be done. He didn't wonderfully make us so that we could just survive. He wanted us to thrive. 

Craig points out that if you are burdened by any part of your life, then you're not living in the vision God created for your life. We should all live excited about what the day holds, and ready to step out in faith towards the next thing He has planned for us. We were all created for more than the anticipation of 5 o'clock.

Chazown has helped me to fully understand that I was uniquely created to do something here on this Earth that only I can do. You were uniquely designed for something only you can do....only you.

So the question becomes, are you doing it? Or are you just wandering through life, taking one step after the other, but having no clue whether you're going in the right direction or not? Even if you're content and happy, I would bet that you're not exactly sure what your purpose is; what the big dream for your life looks like. 

I love this...straight from page 15 of Chazown:

"Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord."  Sir Francis Drake

"Are you willing to let God disturb you with dreams so big that you don't know how they'll be accomplished? A vision that can only come true if He pulls it off?
That's what you'll get if you come on this journey. If you seek God's unique life purpose for you. 
I won't promise the road will be smooth. But I do promise you can start today living with a vision for fulfillment. You will wake up every day with purpose and passion, motivated anew to fulfill your destiny. 
No more wandering. No more emptiness. No more searching. 
You will day, "This is why I was created. This is the meaning for my existence."
And God will smile." 

Just wanted you to know what I was thinking about tonight. Just wanted you to know that there is a way to be so much more than you ever planned to be. Just wanted you to have a place to search for the truth. 

Know that with God, there is always more for you than you ever imagined, but you have to seek Him. 

May God disturb you.


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