King Saul.
Like it or not, we all know people who explosively exhibit the traits that made this first king of Israel so infamous.
He was loud. He was a bully. He had an agenda to hold and what started out to be a tender heart with the best of intentions ended up being a cruel and bitter shell with a well paved road to the place where good intentions alone can take a man.
I read about Saul and I see so much potential and yet I also see a man who is so very skillful at undoing all that he holds dear.
Saul was paranoid.
He viewed everything as an attack on himself and upon the work he was trying to do. Everyone that God had placed in his life to say, "Hey, have you thought about this?" was in all actuality God saying , "Saul, you are placing your own agenda above mine".
Every difference of opinion was a threat and when a person reaches this place in life, a Gilboah is on its way. The place of death will always find these people. Be it a death to a dream, a goal, a plan, or it will produce a legacy of trampled bodies in their conquest to make a name for themselves.
~ 1 Samuel 22:7-8
"And Saul said unto him, Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread, and a sword, and hast enquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?" ~ 1 Samuel 22:13
Saul was paranoid.
King Saul was not the only person who has ever lived that way. People live this way all the time. We all know them. You may live with them, you may work for them or have worked for them, or perhaps you are "Them".
You may live this way and this very blog is something that you view as a threat. There are times when I have lived in the Paranoid and jumped at the shadows, but may I just say that I choose not to live that way anymore.
I was walking into the workplace this very morning when I looked down and saw this little guy.
He (Or she because I really cant tell the gender of a plant) was barely noticeable to the naked eye, and it was really odd that I saw it when I did.
I just had to take it in for a minute, and then I needed to zoom in and show you what I saw, because it was absolutely incredible!!!
Saul was truly a paranoid person, who lived out a miserable life desperately fighting to control and hold onto things that were not his to control or hold on to.
Paranoid people will live their lives always thinking that everything and everyone is out to get them, to hurt them, or to take advantage of them. Paranoid people will always miss out enjoying the life that they have been given because ultimately it comes down to the desire to be in control.
They desire to control every event in life even down to the level of pain that they will experience, and if we determine the amount of pain or the events that we feel will shape us the best, then our God becomes as big as our own mind. Puny god.
I saw this plant struggling for life in the middle of the pavement and I thought of the Apostle Paul in the book of Philippians. I posted a few weeks back "Bloom Where you are planted" (Click Here) about this idea of God arranging our flowerbed and planting us exactly where we have been planted for a direct reason and a specific season.
Paul was in a situation where he had ZERO control and yet somehow, the fractures in the framework of what he thought should be right served a different purpose than what most of us could see even from the outside looking in.
God used this little plant in the asphalt, and the Apostle Paul to issue a challenge to me that I wish to issue to you today!
The apostle Paul was an "Inverse Paranoid".
Paul was not self-centered in any way, rather he was confident that God was going to finish any work that had been started in his life.
Imagine how much easier it would be to succeed and be happy in life if you were constantly expecting the Father to support you and bring you every opportunity to become who He made you to become.
"And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." ~Romans 8:27-29
I want to challenge you today to think like an "Inverse Paranoid".
Believe and operate from the belief system that everyone and that everything you face today has been allowed by the Father to bless you and to help you grow into the person that you were born to be.
Step out of your old way of processing things and understand that God has uniquely designed every circumstance as a way to help you grow!
Every "Fracture" that you have in the solid framework of your plans and in the "What I think it should turn out like" circumstances of life are meant to help you.
"MANY TIMES WE FIND OUR WORLD BEING SHAKEN TO ITS CORE AND WE RUN TO GOD ONLY TO DISCOVER THAT IT IS GOD WHO HAS BEEN DOING THE SHAKING"
The "Cracks" in life that we struggle to hold together, were given by God so that you, the plant, can push through into the sun. Everything that happens in your life is God conspiring with His creation and the universe to bring the ultimate good to your life.
It is the Romans 8:28 reasoning that can help you go through the Philippians of your life and be content
Jesus came to give us LIFE and LIFE more abundantly. The Life that He gives us because of the act of His redemption of us will always find a way and the struggles are worth it in order to feel the sun, taste the rain and to breathe the air in deep.
Keep climbing because the very cracks that God allows in the solid structures and frameworks of your life , world view and belief systems are the very "Breaks" in life that He is giving you so that you can grow into what and who you were meant to be!
Climbing with you,
~Dan
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