obeying what God tells you to do

Sometimes the things God asks us to do seem difficult. Sometimes they seem dangerous. Sometimes they seem crazy. Sometimes they just do not make sense in the moment. Yet, God calls us to trust Him and obey - not the easiest thing to do.

Typically when you read Acts 9 the focus is on Saul's conversion. I do not know how many times I have read that chapter and not paid too much attention to the conversation that God had with Ananias in verses 11-17. Stop for a moment and put yourself in Ananias' shoes. God has just asked him to go the visit a man who is known for persecuting Christians. Just a few chapters earlier, the book of Acts records how Saul had been present and approved of the stoning of Stephen. The word from God to go and visit Saul cannot have been something that Ananias took lightly.

When God first told Ananias to go, he responded by reminding God of the reputation that his man had. Ananias had reason to be very afraid of this man. But, God still commanded Ananias to go and visit Saul, trusting God that Saul's conversion was the real deal. And so Ananias did obey and go.

I do not know about you, but that would be hard for me. As much as I know God can be trusted, I think I would have hesitated if I was in Ananias' shoes. Go and visit a known persecutor of Christians and pray for him! I do not think so. But, God says to trust Him and so you go anyways. That would be difficult. It would be scary. It would seem crazy.

Over and over again, Scripture is filled with accounts of God asking people to step out and follow Him in obedience - exercising their faith in Him. Many times these were in situations where it was hard to do so, yet, when people did step out in trust, God rewarded their obedience. Obeying what God tells us to do is not always easy. It can be hard. It can force us to face a fear we have. It can make us take a risk. But over and over again, we can see evidence of God's faithfulness when we do step out.

Scripture does not refer to the man spoken of in these verses again, but he is one of the examples of early believers acting on their faith. And faith is so much more than just head knowledge and agreeing with something. Faith does actually require us to take action. And God does keep His word to those believe Him and act in obedience to what He says.

when dreams don't come true when you expect

Sometimes as I look at all my friends and family who have had the most significant dreams in their lives come true, I wonder why some of mine have not. It does not seem fair that their dreams would come true and I would be sitting here waiting and trying to trust God that He will make it happen when it is supposed to. I do not want to wait. I want my dreams to come true.

So with those thoughts in my head recently, I was challenged by an article I read a week or so ago on Boundless (the college/young adult webzine and blog from Focus on the Family). The article was called Things I Won't Be. It is written by someone who has an understanding of what it is like to wait for marriage and children.

Marriage and children - a dream that, if I am honest, I have had since I was a little girl playing house or Barbies with my sisters. I may have spent a number of years running from anything that remotely resembled that (as I grew a little bit older, I spent far more time playing sports with the guys in the neighbourhood or playing with Lego or cars, than with "girly things"). I may have even denied that I ever wanted to get married and have children of my own for a few years. But, the truth is, down deep inside it is what I desired and what I dream(ed) about.

And so, now I find myself wondering why it is not yet my turn as I attend another one of my friends' weddings and help my sister plan hers (after having my other sister get married not that long ago). I am truly happy for my friends and my sisters. But, sometimes it does get hard to go to another wedding and wonder when your turn will finally come - when your dream will finally come true.

As hard as it is sometimes, in the midst of those wondering and feelings of how unfair it is, that is a time when we can grow in our relationship with God. It is in those times that we have choices to make. We can choose to become bitter about it or we can choose to trust God. And in choosing to trust God, we take our dreams, our desires, our wondering about when our turn will come to Him. We pour out our hearts to Him.

And after we have done all of that, we get up and we keep on going with life. We keep on serving God. We keep on obeying God. We keep on loving the people in our lives. We keep on trusting God. We keep on waiting for God's leading. We keep on waiting for God's timing. We keep pouring our heart out to God. We keep on going. And we keep on hoping that one day it will be our turn.

I will be honest, many times it has seemed like it would be much easier to just give up on the dream - to try to squash it and any of the feelings that come along with it. On the surface it seems like that would cause us the least disappointment with our lives. It seems like that would make it easier to continue to pursue that education or to continue to "climb the ladder" at work. But, ultimately, that will not satisfy. In fact, trying to squash it will make it more difficult to deal with the dream. We are better off to acknowledge it and to embrace it and to continue to take it to God. He is the One who can satisfy and who can give us the strength and courage it takes to keep on going with life while we wait.

what are your dreams?

What are those things that you dream of doing?

What are those things that you imagine accomplishing one day?

Have any of your dreams come true? How?

I have been thinking a lot about those questions lately. In the past few months, I have watched a few of my friends have their dreams come true - dreams of all different kinds and looks - but dreams they have had nonetheless.

When I see someone else's dream come true it produces mixed emotions in me. It give me hope that one day my dreams can come true. And, at the same time, it makes me wonder when it will be my turn for a dream to come true and how long I have to wait for that day. It is hard to be in the "in-between" stage where you know what the dream is, but it has yet to come true. It takes patience to remain in that place and to keep taking the steps necessary towards the dream being fulfilled.

As I started to think about the dreams I have, I started to notice a pattern - the dreams that seem the most impossible when I look at them are most often the dreams that I know God has given me. I look at them and think: "there's no way I could ever do that" or "there's no way that will ever happen." Yet, God has given me that dream. It seems as though fulfilling the dreams God gives me requires faith and a willingness to step out and take a risk.

That is not the way I prefer to operate. I want to know where the next step will take me before I take it. But, with these dreams it seems as though God is saying: "take that step, trust Me." That does not come naturally to me. I do not like to take risks, but God is showing me that oftentimes the way to fulfilling my dreams requires me to take risks - to take steps into the unknown, trusting that He knows where I am going and is guiding my steps.

Dreams . . . the more I think about it, the more I realize that they are essential to living life to the full. Without dreams we just kind of go through each day without excitement or purpose. When we have dreams that we are looking to, we have a direction to go, a purpose for moving forward. Dreams are important to life and to our relationship with God.