The Box Reference.

To be brutally honest. I have had those days. Where i get up and say: "i don't really want to do anything today." i think we're all afraid to say that. we are afraid and too ashamed to admit that we have those days. Where our heart says "I don't want to do what i know i am supposed to do today." Days where we just don't feel like doing anything. And we're not honest enough to tell anyone. Well. that's my selfish self. and the devil got me to do that for a year and a half. And i will warn you now. You will feel as empty as ever if you let that feeling keep on going. If you do the things that just YOU want to do, you will end up feeling horrible and empty and self-centered and alone. Like i did. For nearly a year. I LET MYSELF slide into it. It was slow. It was selfish. And now i realize what i have to do. That's why it's so important to wake up every day and sit and talk to God until you feel like you have died to yourself. Tell yourself that whoever you are going to serve today is more important than anything you could ever want. Whether you FEEL like you want to serve that person or not. Pray until God gives you the feeling of invigorating love.
In Drops Like Stars, Rob Bell explains how some people aren't just "out of the box" thinkers. There are some thinkers who don't have a box at all. He says that sometimes those people we call "out of the box" really are just a different version of the people who are in the box. But the people who are really really passionate
are those who have been forced
or have decided themselves
to have no box at all.
In Rob's words
all their boxes have all been smashed.
Or they have asked God to smash them.
I think that's when we get bold.
When we ask God to smash all of our unsmashed boxes.
That's dangerous.
When we wake up in the morning and say
God i don't really want to do this
and i am being selfish.
i realize that.
please humble me
please smash all of my boxes and give me a passion to think without a reference to the box at all.
Make me brave enough to follow what you have boldly asked me to do.
Take fear away from me. Give me the strength to stand when all of my frames of reference have been smashed and confused.
And make me joyful when all my frames of reference were smashed.
When you just don't feel like feeling anything
that is a sign to go do something.
Go serve.
I need to find a place to go serve.
People.
Because when we seclude ourselves from people.
We get selfish.
It probably is possible to live alone all of your life.
But have you also observed that the people who live alone
end up being quite self-centered.
It hurts us when we decide to not go take care of other people.
someone other than ourselves.
SO yes.
I am human.
I wake up and sometimes think i don't want to do this today, God. I am scared. I am tired. I am whatever excuse i want to make up to not do this today.
Our sinful nature and our selfishness will make up all kinds of excuses to get us to not do what God wanted us to do. SATAN ONLY COMES TO STEAL KILL AND DESTROY.
DO YOU REALIZE THAT?
BY BEING ALONE, BY NOT SERVING, BY NOT FORCING OURSELVES TO DIE TO OURSELVES.
WE ARE FORFEITING OUR INHERITANCE AND GIVING IT TO SOMEONE ELSE.
ESAU SOLD HIS INHERITANCE- HIS BLESSING FROM HIS FATHER
TO HIS YOUNGER BROTHER
FOR A MEAL.
FOR a meal.
He had come in from the fields and he was tired.
extremely extremely hungry.
goodness he was tired.
and hungry.
So he told Esau that he wanted some of the soup Esau was making in the kitchen.
And for a bowl of soup, he sold his inheritance.
Because he was tired.
So that's why endurance is so important.
Endure. Get past that feeling of "I don't want to. i don't feel like it."
God's son died for you.
So that God would forgive our past sins.
And we would not keep on sinning.
And we would care for those who really
really
have something to whine about and be tired about.
So we can tell others who are stuck in the box
who are tired of trying on their own to be those "out of the box thinkers"
that they don't have to have a box at all.
That is freeing.
When you realize that you don't even have to keep on fighting the status quo.
God loves me.
Because God still loves you no matter what.
And therefore no status quo is necessary.
So We wake up.
Sit and read and pray and do whatever you need to do.
Have patience to wait and pray until all of that selfishness and unholy discontent is gone.
Die to yourself and serve someone else.
I don't think we realize that our inheritance is at stake.
God has a purpose for you.
If you don't know what it is. Sit and listen and read UNTIL HE HAS TOLD YOU EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.
The seen is temporary but the unseen is eternal.
We forget that.
We look to what we CAN see in our future,
saying "goodness i am not sure if i like that very much." or "okay tomorrow i have soccer practice and that one dinner with those people that i talk to all the time, then i'll do some work around the house then read a bit and go to bed and the day after that i'll start all over with a bit of variation just to make myself feel better."
and we don't realize that what we are missing
IS SOMETHING WE CAN'T EVEN SEE or HAVEN'T EVEN IMAGINED YET.
God has something planned for you that you haven't even imagined.
So sit down and talk to him. And listen. until He has told you what that is.
Or serve people and pray while you do so that he tells you what that is.
And that He gives you the strength to carry it out.
Sometimes it takes all of our boxes getting smashed to imagine that life could be any different than we have already planned it to be.

Look at how God planned the concept of time.
Time keeps us in our box a bit.
But God has a design and a plan for you that reaches beyond the stretches of time.
It is bigger than you could imagine.
Things are happening around you that you can't even see.

Don't try to fit GOD into YOUR logic.
Cause it's not going to work.
If you try and fit god into your mind
into your way of thinking.
i'll let you know now.
you'll fail.
i've done it before.
I've tried to over think things.
I'm actually quite good at it (and that's a bad thing).
I've thought about tomorrow way too often, and, likewise, i forfeit my inheritance, not realizing that any minute God could completely make everything do a 180 and put the cards into my hand.
What you can't see
is way more important than what you can see. Cause God is alot bigger than anything we could ever imagine.
He doesn't fit into our boxes.
He created us to live right next to him.
That's why we so easily get tired of referring to being "inside of the box" or "outside of the box"
It's tiring isn't it?
Because we were made to live beside god.
with no reference to a box at all.

Be who God created you to be.
If you don't know who that is,
ask God to show you and tell you.
Do what He purely created you to enjoy doing.
Do the things he tells you to.
Once we submit, we realize that we actually enjoy obeying more than we thought we would
cause God has our best interests in mind.
We can't out-think him and we can't fit Him into our frame of reference.
Cause He IS our frame of reference.
Love and be loved and die to yourself.

God, This is a bold statement.
Please give me the strength and will to live it.
Amen.