KEEP PRESSING ONWARDS, YOU CAN’T STAY HERE!!
KEEP PRESSING ONWARDS, YOU CAN’T STAY HERE!! Marianne, keep pressing forward, you can’t stay where you are! If I am being honest, I have been in a little funk lately, feeling a little defeated, tired, apathetic…..and mostly because of things like the children’s behavior, situations we are in or encountering, feelings of hopelessness about certain things, the length at which things are taking to actually happen, and probably a lack of vitamins 😉 But Chris has been encouraging me out of this sad little place I am in, challenging me, giving me scripture to meditate on, he even gave me a deadline to do a blog cause it has been so long for me! The deadline was today! So a few days ago while I was making meat loaf (and it turned out yummy) I was struck with a whole sermon in my head. I had been listening to music on my phone while cooking and the song Pioneer by Rick Pino came on…..I actually had never really listened to it cause it was a slower one of his and the title really didn’t catch my attention……BUT the lyrics, “Keep pressing onwards, you can’t stay here…” smacked my face like a wakeup call, and pierced my heart and soul. There was a lot of self-talk going on while I was mixing the raw meat with my bare hands. May have been therapeutic?!
I have posted his YouTube video with lyrics, give it watch……..then I will carry on……
I found a scripture about pioneers in the bible….
Hebrews 12:1-3 (The Message) “Do you see what this means—all these PIONEERS who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”
So I am gonna back up a little here…….just so you understand my thought pattern. Which may or may not be normal?! 😉
When I was younger, much younger, my parents would pack my sisters and I into our blue safari mini-van and head out on a 2 ½ hour trip to see my grandparents and Aunt and Uncle. We lived in a small town and there was only one highway that led to my grandparents’ house. So I thought that there was only ONE WAY to go, I had memorized all the land marks, where we had to turn, and the familiar sights as we got closer. Wait? What? “Where are you going dad? You missed the turn. You’re going the wrong way. This doesn’t look familiar to me at all.” I was panicking, possibly hyperventilating, questioning, worrying, a little anxious, my eyes were darting around trying to find something that looked familiar! Nothing. Nothing looked the same, where were we? Ah, we were lost! What were we gonna do? But then…I…..saw…..my……… grandparents street………. how did that happen?
Have you ever had this conversation with your father, I mean Father? I have been having this conversation a lot, and to be honest, it has been more of a one-sided conversation with Him. I am so caught up in the what-if’s, the I don’t knows, the why’s, the how come’s, the when’s……..I am not letting Him just drive the “van”…………
There are a few things I have learned, especially the last few years. Sometimes God puts detours on our path and sometimes He even puts road blocks up. It is inevitable that others will cross your path, some only once, and some quite often. Yet even with all these detours and road blocks, God is still leading us to the same destination. Now, because I am being honest, I’ll let you know that sometimes I do get discouraged and think that this particular ‘detour’ or this certain ‘road block’ is taking me too far off course. It is definitely not the way I would have gone, nor is it the turn I would have taken….sometimes I think my plan would have been better!
However, it says in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.”
No matter what your path looks like, whatever terrain you are on, wherever it is taking you, whatever twist and turns it makes……….. You have to trust! Trust that God has it all in control, and relax. Don’t let the road blocks or detours deter you from moving forward and embracing your destiny and future!
God wants us to rely on Him and not on our own strength or anyone else’s…….He has a destiny for each one of us, a calling that no one else can do…..we are each individuals, therefore all our paths are going to be unique and different. I know that God has a unique path for me to take, and it may not look how I think it should……but I am never going to quit moving forward, I want to explore, I want to be a pioneer and see what my frontier has for me and what it looks like. I want to be a ground breaker, an innovator, a trailblazer, creator, developer, explorer, spear header, adventurer, risk taker……
I have decided to EMBRACE the path I am on, embrace yours!
Keep moving onwards, you can’t stay here!
Here are some encouraging scripture to remind you what you already know!
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
Proverbs 3:6 “In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.”
Psalm 73:23-24 “Nevertheless I am continually with You; You do hold my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to honor and glory.”
Jeremiah 10:23 “O Lord [pleads Jeremiah in the name of the people], I know that [the determination of] the way of a man is not in himself; it is not in man [even in a strong man or in a man at his best] to direct his [own] steps.”
Mari
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