the unexpected journey: the journey continues through 2015 and beyond

From last weeks post: “This leads to the second way to grow that trust. Once you see that he is trustworthy it allows you to build a deeper relationship with him. This takes you into a deeper trust of him; which leads to bigger issues to trust him in. At any point in the process you are allowed to say no—like the followers of Jesus mentioned earlier. If you choose to say no, the relationship stops there. If you choose to say yes, the relationship continues to grow—meaning the trust also grows. This may help you understand what is going on, but it still hurts. This is the third area to learn. It isn’t a sacrifice—or is it?” You may recall from a previous post that I mentioned singing a song from the depths of my being that went something like it isn’t a sacrifice, here is my life. I have since had a change of heart. Dying is indeed a major sacrifice. You are born into a selfish self-centered sin-filled world. You are taught about “it’s all about me,” from an early age; then you are introduced to Jesus Christ. He teaches you that it isn’t about you, but about what the Father desires. If you buy into that—this is what we call salvation—then you are heading for a lesson in sacrifice. There are those who will say no thank you, thus turning and walking away. There are those who will say yes initially only to say no later on, thus limiting the relationship to that level. Then there are those who will say yes to the whole package and will find themselves dying—a lot of times over. This is why the lesson hurts. It is a sacrifice to trust God. It hurts because you think this lesson should teach you this while the Father says, “No, it will show you this.” It hurts because you think this lesson should last one semester when the Father says, “No, this lesson is post graduate work.” It hurts because to trust means to sacrifice and to sacrifice means to die—which means surrendering your desires to those of the Father.