Summer activities are beginning to wind down preparing us for what comes next. School is back in session, meaning a new chapter in all of our lives — some more direct than others, but a new path nonetheless. The time is right for us to refocus our pursuits.
Consider 2 Timothy 1:3-7:
I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (ESV)
Reading the familiar last sentence in its context causes the message to become clear: Don’t be afraid to be who God has called you and is forming you to be. The joy and assurance we have as followers of Jesus is that we get to look in every direction of our lives and see purpose, to see meaning, to know that the circumstances of our lives are not haphazard or pointless, but even the hurtful can be used by God to conform us into the image of Jesus.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have been called and set on a pathway. The deep regret is that some resist this call. Some have determined to listen to contrary voices instead of fanning to flame the giftings God has given, and as a result, have traded the glorious for the inglorious. What C.S. Lewis warned us of in his address The Weight of Glory has come true:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Here we are. At a new beginning. As we watch the leaves fall from the trees in a few months don't allow God's path for you to slip by unaware. Don’t waste your life pursuing things that don’t matter. What profit is it if you gain the whole world and forfeit your own soul? As we prepare for this new season, enter it with the realization of the significance of your life in the eyes of God. God secured your life by the death of the Son. Let this gospel truth be your leveraging point to be all that you can for all of Him.
This call is costly, but the glory outweighs any other pursuit. If we are going to have our pursuits directed, we must trace God’s hand in our circumstances, even in the hard times. Tracing God's hand might be difficult for some, but if you could pull back for just a moment and look through lenses of faith at your circumstances to trace God’s wise hand of providence, to see how through it all God has been conforming you to his image. Then the pathway God has called us to walk becomes even more clear. There may be chapters in your life where you see him ruthlessly perfecting you. Sometimes he carries us, sometimes he takes us kicking and screaming, but all the way he leads us.
Don't miss what is in front of you because of what is behind you. Don’t let the fears of what is unknown derail you from what he has revealed in his Word. Instead, take this new opportunity before you to fall safely into the assurance of the truth of a God who upholds the universe by the word of his power who also knows you by name.
Photo by Rachel Davis on Unsplash