WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE?

Don't you love right now?  From gigantic reasons to celebrate to heartbreaking news that suffocates, we get to live in the wonder of it all!  Don't miss out on the beauty as well as the opportunity of today!

The above admission is completely opposed to the way I was raised and the way I began this preaching ministry.  Back then my days ran according to my moods which were fiercely dependent on the moods of others.  In other words, a multitude of whims drove my attitude and my outlook.

Life was basically a trap for the negative.

God keeps breaking through!  I believe today that He will continue to open new frontiers for me to the point I must never quit seeking Him and His kingdom.  His ways are surely beyond my ways and it is my free choice to dig for discovery that would blow my mind.

So I share with those who would need a mindset similar to the one I took on a couple of decades back that is....well....let me say exhilarating.  Allow me to share what I think it is gonna take for us to perpetually break into the God-zone of meaningful and fulfilling life.

Satan imposes fear.  This cesspool is where plans are aborted and dreams die a slow death.  Imagination not only does not get to run wild, it isn't permitted.  Yet, God clearly teaches that He will trump whatever we can imagine...Eph. 3:20.

What it's gonna take is for individuals to put on Daniel-in-the-Lion's-Den determination.  I discovered that I needed a drastic shift from wishing to risking.  It is a frightening thing to face a group of squint-eyed keepers of the law in the church.

Jesus did it....alone.  His best friends were found in the Garden sleeping while Jesus was sweating blood at the challenge of the Cross just moments away.  We are to follow him....and, for us, it will often be...alone.

Daniel didn't go in with friends to back him.  No, he had a friend and His name is God. What it's gonna take is the courage of individuals to wade into the center of probable destruction and risk all.  God will be there.

I've experienced this many times.  Before I continue I must assure every reader that I am a clumsy and mere human that can misunderstand as well as completely fail. Nonetheless, there are those moments that one needs to stand.

One, for me, was in realizing that our church connection-at-large was mistaken about the Holy Spirit in saying that He did not operate directly in a believer's life.  We had shelved Him with absolute threat that anyone that dare speak in favor of His activity would be dealt with harshly.

Very few would find agreement with me.  The Gospel Advocate publishers told me they believed what I had written to be true; but could not publish is for it would cost them business as the brotherhood didn't want that teaching around.

Alton Howard had the courage to put the book into print and it became so effective that the Gospel Advocate listed The Holy Spirit Makes No Earthly Sense (now under the title Empowering the Ordinary)...and put a picture of the book in their catalog. Twenty-six years later the book is still being printed and is being taught in several foreign countries from Russia to China to the Philippines.

It is my conviction that much need, much valuable need, never gets opportunity to live because the dreamers and the explorers chicken out.  Voices of opposition arise and often hearts of courage tend to melt. Daniel entered the den and cleaned house.

I am not advocating ignorant and silly squabbling.  I am saying that men and women will occasionally find within their hearts great dreams of what could and should be. The more one encounters opposition is the benchmark, I think, of a probable God-idea.

In nearly every book I write I cannot help but include the story of Walt Disney. It is said of him that when he made a proposal for a wild idea about Disneyland's design that if the board unanimously voted it down, he would begin the project immediately.

What's it gonna take where you live when you dream for God and the fear mongers are hesitant?  Never give up.  Be patient.  But never give up.  Don't be afraid to be hurt.  Don't be obnoxious. Just don't let the God-dreams that are embedded within your heart ever die.  I don't care how old you are or how young you are.

Watch for God.  Trust God.

And....face all of the lions whose roll is to scare you out of becoming what you dream.

God will deliver.