Trading places

Car wheels are spinning today and the plows are beeping as they move backwards. The reports call for real bad conditions outside for driving and walking.
I chatted with a friend out in Arizona where the temps are going up to 76 degrees. I asked for a swap of the weather for just one day. The response I got was "No Way!"
I say back, "oh, only for one day and then you will have it back,"
My friend says, "No!"
I say "unfair"


This little interchange reflects the journey also of the Christian faith. I so much can relate to not wanting to leave a comfort zone. It is extremely hard to move from an area of familiarity and into an area that is going to be much different and not the same.
I have enjoyed the cocoon that I have built around myself as it has crystalized and taken shape around me. I can move around in it and poke around in the world with it.

I am trying to slowly break out of it but have not totally become totally free. I do chat with my friends of what my dreams are for my future. I do want to do something great and make an impact on the world. Lord, is that done by working with accounts and files and transactions. And making small impacts as I deal with the clients and customers along the way? Or is it by making a splash in something totally new. Letting the water go over the sides of the pool as other children laugh as the get in and out of the pool. I wish I had a clear answer like an advertisement from a bulletin board on a highway saying "destination for Scott two minutes down the road."

Yet, Lord I am going to trust in you. For as I explored on Martin Luther King day with some friends, Jeremiah 29:11 which states, "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." There is a lot of power packed into that one simple sentence.
In that one sentence the Lord repeats the use of the word, plans, three times. He also repeats the pronoun, you, four separate times. God is directly involved with me helping me to see that He is directly involved in my life. He already has the end in sight and the means to accomplish it. The verse reflects the confidence that the Lord has in me and I have to develop that same self-confidence in knowing the gifts and talents that I have been given will help me to prosper and help others in the future as well.
Not in a health and wealth manner that some preachers speak on but in overall shalom well being.
Lord, thank you for the few moments thinking over that verse again in a new way by looking at its structure. May others be blessed as we continually mine for your truth as well.