This was the title of our church’s youth day sermon. The pastor shared a funny story of he and his wife playing paper basketball to illustrate his point. As I listened to him, I started assessing my own life and my faith journey.
When I started, I honestly had no direction of where to go. I just knew that I was tired of trying to live life on my own terms. I went to God with a request, but after I told Him how he should respond, I was very careful to ask Him to lead.
Shortly after, writing my thoughts became easy. I wasn’t trying to pray, I was just talking to Him as I did a friend. The conversations were to share how I was feeling and what I was observing. And then He told me to do something with these thoughts. Specifically, to share them. By now you know how reluctant I was to do that, but, I also wanted to be obedient.
Also, I kept coming up on scripture about being pruned to become fruitful. Hmm. I had no idea what that meant, but it certainly didn’t sound fun – and seemed a bit scary. I can attest, the pruning has not been fun, but it’s been for my good.
Often, growing up we are taught that we need to do and be a certain way to be accepted by God. The devotions I was led to showed me a different way. It taught me about having a relationship. When we had a relationship, the ‘to do’ list significantly dropped away, and they became things that I wanted to do to honor my Father. I learned how to show up as my authentic self in all situations. God knew me, and I didn’t need to pretend I was someone I was not. It then started showing up in other areas of my life.
Is God taking you on a journey with Him? I promise you, it’ll be worth it when you look back. Stop aiming to be what the church tells you it should look like, and start listening to what God shows you. This comes through a relationship with Him. Give Him permission to teach you how to aim differently.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for a relationship with you, where you mold us, love us, guide and teach us. Help us to let go of expectations of self and of others and to live our lives as you see fit, pleasing and honoring to you.
