Anywho I want this to be a place for me as well as for you who read. Anyone anyone?...ok maybe just for me. I have called this blog "chasing the wild goose" for a reason. It is from a book I just read by Mark Batterson. The Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit- An Geadh-Glas, or 'the Wild Goose.' Much like a wild goose the spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. This is what I am spending my life doing. A lot of times I have no idea what I'm doing or where I am going but that is the amazing adventure of following God on the narrow path He has laid out for my life. In Psalm 119:105 it says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path", this is a lamp that is tied to our leg so we can just see the step in front of us. Sometimes I want one of those beamers that cops have where you can see for miles (ps old creation Kate knows that it is impossible to run from those), but that is not how God wants us to live. I want to throw down my human securities and embrace God's perfect plan for my life! Planning is good don't get me wrong, but when we have planned everything out the way we want it to look with no room for God to work or no need for God at all then He won't.
The way you chase the wild goose isn't by going faster and faster. The key is slowing down your pace, taking off your sandals, and experiencing God right here right now. When you are chasing the wild goose you don't have to manufacture times to minister. In face, it seems to me as I read the gospels that most of Jesus' ministry is unplanned. Hurry kills everything from creativity to compassion. Spontaneity is an underappreciated dimension of spirituality. In face, spiritual maturity has less to do with long-range visions than it does with moment-by-moment sensitivity to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And it is our moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that turns life into an everyday adventure.
-M. Batterson
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. DO NOT CONFORM any longer to the patter of this world, but be TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing, and perfect will."
-Romans 12:1-2
I am in process, I am daily trying to by transformed by the renewing of my mind. I am daily seeking God and asking what He wants me to do and who He wants me to talk to. I have been praying about what God has for me and where He wants me to go with my passions and gifts, and what my passions even are. Questions I ask myself??
-What has God done in my life, and how can I use my past to change lives?
-What is my heart burdened for? What makes me more upset than anything else?
I have wrote a mission statement for my life. I don't know how it is going to flesh out but it is a start, and God can do what He wants with it:
I want to be a mother to God's lost and forgotten children.
Nothing tears my heart up more than knowing that there are little children all around the world that don't know what love is, that are neglected and alone without parents, without someone hugging them and telling them that they are beautiful and loved.
I don't know where this is going to lead. Maybe to an orphanage, maybe in foster care, maybe adoption. I know that it makes no sense to me to start having my own children when there are so many already here that need to be loved and cared for.
So as I delight in the Lord, I know that He will give me the desires of my heart because when I am seeking my Savior my desires are His desires!!! I know that this is not an easy chase that I am on and somedays I forget what I am running after and why, but I know that if it ever ended I would be lost. I know my purpose in life isn't to arrive safely at death. Paul's letter to the Philippians says it best:
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."