Embracing a New Message

I want to say something that definitely came to mind for me yesterday and it’s this: God may not always be telling you the same message for every season of your life.

When you are making a decision, you often think about what has happened in the past, right? You remember that time when God was nudging you to step forward and take action. So, you apply that to this situation, no problem. Sometimes that means that you did the right thing by acting, other times it might not have worked out because God wasn’t telling you to make a move yet. Every situation is different, so you need to listen to see if God is still telling you the same message.

This concept can also come into play when picking what sort of attribute we want to focus on improving, such as trusting God, or being more generous with what we’ve been given.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Say there is a woman who has been blessed bountifully, and she is a wonderful, God-fearing person. However, she struggles with wanting to share what she has because she fears that she will not have enough for herself. But God uses other people and circumstances to change her mind and over time she is one of the most generous people anyone has known. But once she has improved this much in this area, she should listen for the next thing God is telling her to do. If she does not change once she has grown fully in this area, then she has become too comfortable with her calling.

Our callings need to be a little bit risky, forcing us to take that leap of faith. It doesn’t have to be life-threatening, but it shouldn’t be something that comes naturally to us. Of course, if you naturally love giving, and God is calling you to give money to a family in need, you shouldn’t ignore that call simply because giving is something you love doing. God wants us to be able to enjoy our lives and when we are following His commands. What I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t expect what God is calling us to do to be easy all the time. We should be looking out for something unexpected that God might be pushing us to do.

Or maybe it’s something not unexpected, but rather something we’ve hidden deep down inside that we have not wanted to work on.

For me, I know that I have focused more on things that I want to work on rather than the things I need to work on. But what made me realize that God was giving me this message was when I thought about what I was asking for from Him on a regular basis: courage. This was something that I have and will always need, but looking over my past journal entries and prayer requests, I realized that perhaps what I need courage for is changing. More importantly, maybe I should be thinking about what areas of my life need more attention.

The word that I keep hearing lately is praise. This surprised me since I have not thought much about how often I praise God or if I do it enough. I don’t usually hold this word to such a high level of importance. But as these verses kept popping up, I realized that praise can truly change everything. Your perspective, your personality even, how you connect with God and others.

You might have spent the last two years working on seeking wise council, trusting God, or doing more with your church. Everything God tells us or God has put in the Bible for us to apply to our daily lives is important and worth listening to. But perhaps step out of the comfort zone or what you are used to hearing from God and start paying attention to the new words or messages He has been telling you.

“Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.”

Psalm 63:3-4