12 Steps to Purpose-from Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power
The Twelve Steps to Purpose
For a Purposeful New Year
Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power…
How was your CHRISTmas? Did you make memories that will squeeze your heart for years to come? I so hope so. I prayed that you would and that you would not be sad for anything but able to celebrate the birth of our Jesus, the beginning of our purpose! Grab your coffee and let’s get to Step 4! We just may finish before the New Year begins . . . hopefully!
Step 4 tells us to make/take a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Here’s some things that inventory could consist of:
• What direction are you headed toward? Are you going towards Him and your purpose or away from Him?
• Are you in someone else’s lane or have you gone beyond that and gotten in their car? In other words, are you consumed by their inventory?
Oh, I see so many of us women getting in our husband’s lane and even in their car, trying to tell them what they need to do and how to do it but yet we want them to be the leader! Really? What we need to remember, especially when considering our eternal purpose, is He’s not going to talk to you, or me, about others when we get there; no, He will talk to us about us, how we handled being offended, hurt and harassed, etcetera. Again, this step tells us to stay in our own lane, our own car, to let go of control of others.
Another important principle about this inventory is how we keep track of it, and keeping track of it is not meant to rub your nose in your faults, hurts, habits and/or hang-ups. It’s just an incredible way to see Abba in your journey, a great form of accountability.
• Journal the inventory. I love what Lamentations 3:40 tells us: “Let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the Lord.”
WOW!
So, let’s see if we can at least start Step 5: Admit to God as well as ourselves, and someone we respect and trust, the exact nature of our wrongs. See, this also could be journaled! You could admit this in your letter to God, but it is also freeing to find someone that we respect/trust and talk it out. James 5:16 tells us to confess our trespasses to one another and pray for one another. Why, oh why, are we so afraid to confess our faults? What are we so afraid of? What are we hiding from and why? I read something in application notes of Mark 6, the other day and it was referring to Herod. Oops, I feel a little detour, but just a little one. See, King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded all because of his flesh, pride, his fears and his need to be accepted. And when he heard about Jesus’ ministry, he thought that Jesus was John the Baptist’s spirit coming to haunt him. And he really began to fear, especially as he rewound the life tape for his prior actions involving the man he had beheaded. See, most people dislike having their sin pointed out, especially in public and that’s because the enemy uses shame as an incredibly strong weapon! The shame of being exposed is, more often than not, stronger than the guilt over the wrong committed.
Here’s what our Higher Power says about this:
• 1st John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now let’s bring this closer to the home of our heart. We are ending the holiday season, a time where we often get together with family and friends. Are you holding a family grudge or a hurt from a friend? Do you have a difficult time being around your family because they don’t believe as you do? What would it look like if we just let people be who they are and love them anyway, realizing that we all sin?
Join me tomorrow for Step 6 in our search for purpose!
Evinda
No comments:
Post a Comment