Life Coaching: God's Vision or Yours?

“If we lose the “heavenly vision” God has given us, we alone are responsible—not God. We lose the vision because of our own lack of spiritual growth. If we do not apply our beliefs about God to the issues of everyday life, the vision God has given us will never be fulfilled.” Oswald Chambers

What do we believe about God? This is a question I find myself pondering today in my lateness to get this blog posted. I was not on top of it this week, for sure, like I normally am. I procrastinated, mainly because I felt I had nothing of value to say. Yet, when I read this page from “My Utmost For His Highest,” Oswald Chambers said it better than I ever could.

We go about our daily business, work, family, baseball games, concerts, meal preparation, balancing the checkbook, laundry, eating, sleeping, loving, and yet, how much of God is really in our activities? How does going about our day honor God? Or better yet…what do we do on purpose to fulfill the calling and vision God has planted in each of our hearts? I can be single-minded at times, which is biblically better than being double-minded, I guess, but in that single-mindedness, do I leave God out of the equation and focus only on the task at hand? Even though my attention span is quite short (“Look—squirrel!!”), when I decide to hone in on something, Katie bar the door, as we say down here in the south! I will pursue that thing until it’s stomped into the ground like a dead snake. I do rather like this about myself, but in my pursuit, am I doing it with excellence and am I doing it alongside the Holy Spirit? Those or questions I ask myself and sometimes the answer is “no.”

How about you? What is one thing you KNOW God wants you to do, and yet you’re procrastinating? What’s stopping you from fulfilling your goals? How are you including God in your daily life? There is a great biblical example in the book of Judges. Jael was a woman on a mission. When General Sisera’s army tried to invade, the children of Israel had them on the run. General Sisera, fleeting for his very life, was beckoned into Jael’s tent, given warm milk to drink, and lulled to sleep. While he was sleeping from exhaustion, Jael took a tent peg and hammer, drove it clean through Sisera’s head right straight into the ground, pinning him there and killing him dead. Even though this is rather grisly, Jael was merely going about her daily life, when she saw the opportunity to make the defeat of the enemy complete. She used tools that were familiar to her—the tent peg and the hammer. I imagine many times in her life, she had used the same tent peg and hammer to pitch the family tent. She was proficient in their use. It was part of the daily, nomadic lifestyle of the Israelites. The point? When it was time for her to do warfare, she used the weapons SHE KNEW HOW TO USE BECAUSE THEY WERE PART OF HER EVERYDAY LIFE

Our daily lives are much more than the sum of our physical activities. While important, physical activity can’t replace spiritual activity. We can’t substitute busy-ness for spritual-ness. I just made those two words up, but don’t they fit, though? Take a quiet moment today and ask God, “Lord, have I lost my heavenly vision? If so, how can I get it back? “ He will show you and more importantly, He will love you through the missteps.

Have a great day, everyone!