When You Want To Live Fully Alive

It's ridiculous, but I'm reading at least five books right now. I wish it were not true, because some of the books I can not do justice to being so fragmented. The one book I am pouring over or maybe it is pouring over me, is A Million Little Ways  by Emily P. Freeman.

There are so many books out there, being written by ladies who I respect and adore, yet I was skeptical how so many words could all have value or move my soul.

I am finding Emily's book to be profound.

The pages are unsettling my comfortable soul, awakening something deep within, something that I had no idea was even sleeping.

She asks this question: "Do you desperately fear you have nothing to offer the world but secretly hope you're wrong?"

She talks about how we all have a job to do and that job is to bring glory to God. She lays out beautiful truth from Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." Emily goes on to unfold the beauty of the word masterpiece, sometimes being translated workmanship, which is the Greek word poiema. Our English word poem.

I've studied and read many things in the years since I have began my Jesus-walk, but I have never read that I am a poem, ...you are a poem, indeed ...we are all individual poems, "created... anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."

So we are poems, image-bearers of God, made to reflect His glory. We do this, when the art in us is released from the depths of who we are, when our spirit links as one with the Holy Spirit. It is from that place that we reflect the very glory of God. It is in that place we find our highest purpose and then deep joy and satisfaction.

Some of the things it has stirred in me, is how to embrace my today-life, the place I am currently walking in. I have become more aware of how many people, including myself,  don't know what their purpose in life is.

Mostly I know about women. And it is hard, because we are caregivers, nurturers, relational beings. We pour out every ounce of energy we have most often to other people. Sometime even ... to please other people. If you are currently in the middle of all the runny noses, meals every four hours and too many sleep depraved nights, it's hard to find time just to shower.

And so many other women have passed through the years of raising  their children, working, home educated, serving in their churches and ten-thousand other things and now as our children leave home and we are no longer needed twenty four hours a day, we find ourselves wondering, how do I live, serve, create, know who God made me to be in this new season?

No matter what season of life we find ourselves in, we serve a great God, and He has something more for me, for you.

I just returned from a gathering of women and I was surprised by conversations I had, that all but one woman I spoke to, knew a little, if not a lot, about what God was speaking over her life. The crazy thing is that none of them had taken the first step of obedience toward it! This is amazing and concerning! They all stated that self-doubt and fear kept them from taking the first steps toward their passions and walking in what God has for them. In her book, Emily says it well, "....new life happens when we die to the old life."

A few things to consider:

 *What makes me come fully alive when I'm doing it or talking about it?

 *We probably are not qualified by the worlds standards.

 *A good place to begin is in time of prayer, repentance and seeking God's heart for us.

 *We don't have to look all over for what our purpose is. Right where we are we can look back, around,  within, and up.

It will always be out of time spent with Jesus that everything else comes. As we spend time alone with Him, the things we dream, desire, hope for spring up and out.

There is so much that this author unfold about awakening, uncovering and releasing the art you were designed to make. The deep meaning we all hope we have, most desire to unearth or more fully realize.

Get the book, and better yet, get with God. Since He is the One who created you and planned good things for you to do, He would be the One to reveal it to us as we spend time with Him.

A Few more quotes from Emily's book,  A Million Little Ways.

"When we live free, we are able to give freedom. When we live loved, we are able to give love. When we are secure, we are able to offer security. God reveals Himself through every artist, and the artist is you. The question isn't who is the artist? The question becomes who are you?"

"Be brave enough to move toward what makes you come alive."

"There is a real pull between exploring those things
that make us come alive while,

at the same time,
being present to our responsibilities and our life stages."

"Could it be possible that the thing you most long for, the thing you notice and think about and wish you could do, is the thing you were actually made and are being equipped to do?"

"....your true desire is found, not in God's ways or God's will

or God's blessings, but in God Himself."

 Ultimately we can do most anything as long as we do it for God's glory. That is hard to grasp. Some... probably most... won't like to hear that. It's too broad and wide and free.

Ultimately we can't do anything at all apart from God.

We will uncover and release these things when we spend time with the Lord in his word, prayer and seeking his face in all things.

What is your wildest dream?

Maybe it's not that far our of reach.

Maybe it is the very thing you were designed to do in this season of your life.

You were made by design.

Walk in your God-designed God-dreams.