A Simple Life

Isn't it amazing how a name can be so powerful, especially just the first part of it? The name Jesus has an amazing power behind it, it can do one thing after another, but most importantly it can save your life. Nothing else has the power to save, like the name of Jesus! We can be broken and miserable crying our eyes out in total misery, a depressed state, an all out sucky feeling, but we can do one thing that will fix the hurt, and the pain and sadness, cry out to Jesus! Yet we take this name for granted, and we don't even mean too, has it ever occurred to you that on each and every breath we say the name of God? Or is that something else we take for granted? Do we take breathing for granted too, that we actually miss what we're actually saying? Personally I have, I have missed on God's voice, or for that matter, His name in general. Is it that we actually breathe the name of God, or that the name of God is actually the sound of breathing? Let me explain, or for that matter Rob Bell will explain. In his NOOMA video Breathe, he talks about how the word breath is the same for the word Spirit.

We cannot only breathe out the name of God, we also need to breathe in Him. When we are born what do we first do? Take a breath, or say the name of God? Or when we die, do we take a breath, or say the name of God before our eyes shut for good on earth? Think of the simplest thing our lives, breathing! We breath everyday, all day, awake and asleep, and roughly say the name of God (YEHWAH) 8640 or so times a day alone. When a person is telling you there is no God, are they actually sounding out the pronunciation of Yehwah?  Listen closely to Rob Bell, when he talks about that part (it gave me goosebumps).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dbklupf5AQ

I want to be simplistic in my relationship with my Lord, to say nothing, to just listen to my Master's call, and focus on Him alone. In my devotional today (one of them, Max Lucado, Out Live Your Life) I learned the God does not call the qualified, that He in facts calls on the unqualified. The quote was this "God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Even the Devil will try and deter us from this, saying that God only calls on the professionals, the smartest, the most qualified. Well guess what, we are, we all are! God has a mighty plan in store for all of us, whether its missions trips, going into medical missions, being a youth pastor in Texas, Massachusetts, or Virginia, or a police officer working with troubled youth, or just wanting to work with the youth. Whatever your plan is, God has called you to it. Stop ignoring it, stop trying to shape your own destiny, God has it all mapped out, just live it according to His will. How simpler could a life get just by living out an already set life, and breathing. Both ways will be serving my God and worshiping Him, some days without me even knowing what I am doing. I longer wish to take the simplest of things in life for granted, because that I am taking the name of God for granted, and all the power, and love that it bestows on me and all of you! 

I have a passage of Scripture that I want to apply to this, James 4: 7-10 (The Message). "So let God work in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he'll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life.Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, real serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it's the only way you'll get on your feet." 

This passage has honestly brought me to tears, every time I read it. It is my guilt scripture, when I am at my lowest points in life, I am reminded, God is there by whispering a quiet yes, or maybe even breathing out His name, J.E.S.U.S. Breathing in/out the name of God, and following an already planned out life, sounds pretty ideal to me!

Then I am consistently reminded of "Be still and know that I am God." Or the way my Pastor gave a paraphrase, which worked just as well (if not better) Shut Up, Stop your worrying, Stop not trusting me, I your God have you, I got you always!!! How reassuring is it that my God loves you so much, that He know matter your faults and failures He is always there. ALWAYS!!! We just need to be more simple, and try to be less of what we are not, extraordinary! Or for that matter be less qualified, and live to be qualified life in the Spirit, by obeying His call and plan for our lives, whether we're fishermen, youth pastors, convenient store clerks, UPS drivers, or out of work, furthering your education. We all have a calling to be something we are, instead we are trying to be more than what we actually should! Let's try to live our lives SIMPLE! 

Until next time "It's just me and my God!