All along my journey as a Christian, I have been hearing a quiet voice of dread. To truly get close to God, you need to obey Him. Not only that, you need to WANT to obey Him. But the voice of dread often overwhelmed the desire to obey.
What if God wants me to live in the desert and eat locusts, like John the Baptist? What if he wants me to be poor and beg in the streets? What if He wants me to die a martyr’s death? The voice of dread droned on and on and on, drowning out the call to seek God.
But then the words of God to the prophet Jeremiah sing back through the drone of dread.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
God’s plans are that I prosper. He plans to give me a hope and a future. Those are good plans. He did not design me and build me because He wanted a sad, stressed, angry child. He is full of joy, and he created me to be full of joy as well. He is a good Daddy, that wants me to be happy.
But what creates happiness? My focus has often been on houses and clothes and cars. Maybe it is job satisfaction, or recognition by other people. John warns against that focus.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:15-17(NIV)
Have you ever noticed that most of our stress, sadness, anger comes from disappointment and loss? We want something and struggle to get it. Or we have something, and then lose it. Important things, like jobs and homes, or silly things like fancy shoes or a new dress.
Some of our sadness or disappointment comes from harder struggles: A son who is on drugs or a husband with a terminal illness. Even watching the world’s anger and violence can cause a deep sadness and discouragement.
True joy, the joy that lives deep in me today and forever, comes from re-aligning my focus and priorities. We may have cars, and houses and great jobs. Or we may not. But we hold lightly to these temporary things. They will pass away. Even the harder things, the real wounds in our lives, must ultimately be handed over to our loving Father. They are too big for us to lift. Our souls will crack if we try to carry them.
Instead we set our hearts on the One who made those things. We take joy in the Giver, rather than the gift. The gifts come or go. It does not matter. The Giver is our joy.
But there’s the rub, right? This vague far-away being, that doesn’t even have a face, is hard to get excited about. The creator-judge up in far-off heaven is too distant to grab our imagination, or our love.
Don’t worry, There’s a plan for that. God continues discussing His plans with Jeremiah:
Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:12-13 (NIV)
So that’s the plan. God starts the ball rolling by demonstrating that the stuff we get into is “just stuff”. It’s boring at best, and destructive at worst. Once we start looking for something better, He draws us to look closer at Him. We start seeking Him. He starts showing us Himself. And deeper and deeper it goes.
Where do we seek Him? He put a lot of time and effort into writing a story. We call it the Bible. Then He placed His ultimate offer. He asked His Son to walk around among us, just being Who He Is. We don’t have to imagine what God is like. But we do have to spend some time seeking Him. God’s Word, God’s Incarnation in His Son, God’s Creation, and finally, the constant Presence in our lives, these are the things we need to pay attention to.
This is where our abundance lies, This is our happiness, This is our joy, that when we seek Him, He chooses to be found. And in finding Him, we find everything.
Now that is success! We are becoming what we are designed to be, in the power and light and joy of God the Father. What better definition of success could there be?
