You Can't Go Home Again...

Suggested Reading: Amos 5:1-8

My family lived in the same house for my entire childhood. Until I left for college, the biggest move I'd ever made was from one bedroom to the other. Even off at college, there was something very comforting about knowing that I could go back home and everything would be like it was. A couple years after I graduated from college, when my brother and sister had also graduated and moved out of the house, my parents took a job in another state and they sold that house. I've been back a couple times since then just because I was curious. Peeking in the empty windows, you could see how someone knocked down a wall or how someone added a stone BBQ pit in the back-yard.

Once when I stopped by, the house had obviously been deserted and someone had left the front door unlocked. Cautiously, I opened the door and announced my presence. The house was completely empty. Not a stick of furniture remained. As I stood in the barren living room, the house felt so…foreign. My parents weren't there to greet me as I walked in. My brother and sister weren't there to harass or hug me. There were no smells of some new recipe my father had invented wafting from the kitchen. And it struck me. This place was not the home I knew. The home I knew was now scattered about and only recreated at those few times when the family gathered as a whole again.

I recently ran across a passage from Amos that reminded me of that experience. Amos 5:4-6 reads,

For the Lord says to the house of Israel:
"Seek Me and live!
Do not seek Bethel
Or go to Gilgal
Or journey to Beer-sheba,
For Gilgal will certainly go into exile
And Bethel will come to nothing.
Seek Yahweh and live…" (HCSB)

Bethel, Gilgal, and Beer-sheba were all places where the Israelites had met with God in the past and some people were making the mistake of seeking out the place rather than seeking out God himself. They believed that they could go back to where they had previously encountered God and things would go back to the way they were, that they could recreate their previous religious experiences. Instead, God warned them against confusing the place where they had encountered God with God Himself.

Like those Israelites, there are times when we yearn for something we think we once had, for a time and place where we felt closer to God or experienced God's presence more powerfully. Whenever we feel that way, God says, "Don't seek the place or the experience. Seek Me." We can't recreate past experiences with God, we can only find God anew as we seek daily for Him.

As we continue forging our way through the year, let's cherish those memories of past experiences with God and family, but never confuse the places with the Person. God wants to do something new in our lives. Let's seek Him out.

Driving Your Heavenly Daddy Batty

Suggested Reading: James 4:1-16

When they were very small, both of my children went through a phase when they insisted on doing everything for themselves. Most children go through this phase at some point, but my children nearly drove me crazy with it. They wanted to do everything for themselves whether they were actually capable of doing it or not. And if I tried to help or (God forbid!) to do it for them then I would hear, "I can do it myself, Daddy!" At times, I got so frustrated with their stubborn refusal of my help that I started saying, "You're gonna drive your daddy batty!" Eventually, though, they both reached the point where they realized that wasting two hours on something Daddy could do in thirty seconds wasn't worth it until they learned to do it a little better.

Sometimes, because we are all children, we treat our Heavenly Father the same way, arrogantly insisting that we can do things ourselves, especially when coming up with our own plans for life. Jesus' brother James warned us, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” You don’t even know what tomorrow will bring — what your life will be! For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil (James 4:13-16, HCSB). There is nothing wrong with making plans for the future. In fact, it's a responsible thing to do. But boasting about our own plans or stating for a fact that we will carry out our own plans means we have forgotten two very important things. One, we have forgotten that God probably has plans that far outshine our own and, two, that we are children of the Father and must do what our Father wants.

Making plans is good. Learning to account for variables and strategize and plan is one of the many ways we can grow into becoming more and more like God. But we must constantly be comparing our plans to God's, listening for the changes God would make and obeying so that we can improve our own planning, slowly becoming more and more spirit-led in our planning. But learning and growing in that manner demands a humility from us which recognizes that our plans are neither perfect nor certain.

What plans have you begun banking on?  Do you have plans that have become so important to you that you no longer seek God's guidance, afraid that God will change them? Have you been getting frustrated that your plans keep falling through? Perhaps you need to remember that your planning skills don't yet match your Heavenly Father's. Perhaps God is trying to warn you that your own plans have become too important to you. Or maybe you just need to remember that God is the master planner and has a plan waiting for you if you are willing to follow it.

Don't get hung up on your own plans. Make them, but then take them to the Master Planner and learn how He would improve them. Don't waste years doing your own planning when God could help you through it.