The Good Place

I woke up this morning feeling this urge to write this message, I haven't posted on here in a while because I don't ever want to write something that I wasn't fully invested in. So I took a break, but I am back and ready to say this, hopefully you can find something in this because there is so much I want to try and get out, let's hope it makes sense. This is a two part-er.

God has opened my eyes to something I never really saw until I was in the middle of it. Personally I went through a season of feeling off-balanced, like I was waiting for something to change or missing something but I had no clue of what it could be, but one morning I was praying that this anxiety that I was having, this feeling of off-balance, that Jesus could just take it away. And I can't quite explain it but in that moment, God said 'I can't fix it, until you see it". Hopefully you are still with me, and I hope in some way you can relate to what I am about to say.

What Jesus wanted me to see, was the way I was changing myself without even knowing it, trying to fit into this world I jumped into. I was trying to have so many sides to me, to appeal to everyone that in the middle of it all, I got off balance of who I really was and what it is I believe in. I was trying to make myself sufficient in everyone's eyes, without realizing it. I think there is so much pressure to be just ONE thing and identify as that, if you are funny then there is a pressure to be funny all the time, ripping jokes 24/7 and that is your identifier, or if you have "cool clothes" then you always have to have the most updated trends and look your best all the time. If you play sports, then the grounds would shake if you wanted to also put on heels and go dancing. Trust me, I know that is very dramatic but sometimes that is what it feels like.These qualities we have, all of the sudden become our identifiers and we feel stuck in this "category" of who we are. And I realized, I got focused on parts of me for a while and forgot about everything else, trying to see if maybe this one side of myself would be my "thing", and I thought by doing this maybe I would feel more IN place but it had the opposite affect. Because when I did that, i was turning off a bunch of other gifts and talents God meant for me to be using and expressing. I got focused on who I was in THIS WORLD, and lost sight of who God made me to be so I can fulfill my purpose in HIS WORLD. And isn't it true that we find it so fascinating when people are multifaceted? They express and live daily through multiple gifts and talents, that makes them the unique being God meant for them to be. When I think of Jesus I don't think of Him and just being kind, or just being brave. He is powerful yet gentle, wise yet humble, passionate yet steadfast.

This realization brought me into a place I like to call, The Good Place. You see if you asked me 2 years ago what it meant to be a christian, my answer would have included, everything being all perfect and shiny, 24/7, no complaints or confusion when it came to God. Fast forward two years after starting an actual RELATIONSHIP with God and everything has changed. This idea of a good place, is that, there is no such thing as perfection, so to have a perfect relationship, and be perfectly content, and know all that I need and not question one thing; THIS PLACE DOESN'T EXIST. And God never meant for it to, when we are in the good place, things are good but not perfect, I can be confused and ask question and learn and grow with God, but I don't have to understand everything and I don't have to see everything and not everyday is going to be easy and on a straight path. And it wasn't until I got to this place, could I realize what I talked about earlier. You see for the first two years, I had a religion not a relationship, so I didn't think anything was wrong, it wasn't until I let God in truly that I let Him affect my heart and how things were going. Until I got to this good place, no real change was going to happen. And everyone's good place looks different, someone's may be declaring that God is real and that is there first step into their good place, no one's is the same. The good place calls us to talk to God, ask him for help, listen to what He has to say, have a two sided conversation. The moment I stepped into my good place everything changed and it still is, and that is the beauty of it, the good place never stays the same. I felt like a kid again, asking questions, learning to trust and learning to love the "not-knowing", not afraid to be silly and fail and then try again.

So what will you find in your good place?