This is happening! 
Our realtors planted the sign in the yard last night. Next week our house goes on the market and we’re one step further in this journey with the Lord, ending one amazing season to enter another.
This morning Brad and I talked about what needs to be done yet.
There’s more then moving furniture and boxing up clutter. We’re moving out of state and starting a new business. That means saying goodbye to our daughter Jessie and my mom… for a time.
We’re leaving the place and people who have been HOME for 22 years.
Really Lord?
This wasn’t what I had in mind when I stepped out of my role on staff at The Harvest last year. Had I known, it would have been too much to process.
It’s almost too much now.
But God.
As Brad and I finished our exhaustive to do list, my thoughts trailed back to Christ and …running.
When I do long runs I run a series of connected segments. I visually mark a spot to run too; a flag pole or a tree ahead in the direction I’m running. Doing this gives me something to focus on, diminishing the overwhelming stretch I know I’m going to cover.
I recognize Jesus voice in my thinking;
“Focus on Me as your goal. The details of who, when, where, and how are peripheral. They’ll all fall in line.”
Reaching a destination, accomplishing a project, growing and learning new things are good goals. Serving Christ is a righteous goal. But truly –He is the ultimate goal and the prize.
Being aware of His presence; interacting with the His Spirit, and moving in sync with Him in the midst of everything we do is His goal for us. It’s not so much what we do, but that whatever we do -we do interactively with Him.
He wants to be part of everything we do. He want’s to be seen in who we are. It’s oneness. This is where great things happen.
I look at life as a race. The real start began when I synced in with Jesus and chose to journey with Him. He’s my coach; always there, never giving up. He leads me on this crazy path called LIFE, compelling me to press on stretching, growing, transforming more to His likeness. One day I’ll finish the race and then I will rest in Father’s arms.
As Paul says, ” and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus…” Hebrew 12:1
Jesus is all about the relationship. In that relationship He helps us to grow and transform into something more than we realize we are capable of.
He is the Champion of champions. He loves to win and see His people win. After all, He created us in His image to accomplish His will.
Even so, He only gives us what we can process at the time.
When I run, I can only focus on one marker. I continually look up at my marker while taking in the terrain I’m passing thru. Sometimes it’s hills and they strengthen me. Sometimes it’s a winding wooded path and I’m blown away by beauty. I can’t see the next marker until I’m near the one I’m focused on.
The point is to keep Christ our constant goal. He doesn’t change, though the journey and terrain do. In the race, we become more than what we were before.
So while My head occasionally swims with countless pressing details, I look up and remember it’s about stretching forward with Him.
Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14
Whether we’re making a big move, changing careers or continuing in what seems routine; Jesus and His love remains the goal… and the reward (even before the finish!)
“But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5
Yeh, I’m excited and I’m a little weak in the knees with all the changes. But honestly, I’m lovin it. Once again, we’re having to absolutely CLEAVE to Christ.
I don’t like goodbyes and this is a big one for us, so instead we’ll just say THANK YOU friends.
Thanks be to God who brought us to and thru a fantastic season; picking Brad and I up out of a dark, dirty pit; cleaning us and calling us His own.
Thanks be to friends and all who’ve become family along the way. You accepted us ‘warts and all’. You’ve made our lives rich with countless blessings and memories we’ll treasure forever.
Thanks especially to those who’ve loved us at thru our worst and spurred us again and again to fix our eyes on Christ.
Our eyes are fixed, and our hearts are hungry to pour out where He plants us.
He wants your attention. When He has it, He does marvelous things thru you.
And truly, the best part will be Him and seeing others as He sees them.
“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13