What We Used to Be

Good morning from Montreal and Alpharetta! John and Christa started Tuesday with the Smiths, then John was off to the airport for World Changers/PowerPlant staff meeting and Christa leaped into her summer life. Reading Oswald Chambers, I was struck between the eyes (exactly where his writings often strike) with the beauty of change in a believer's life. Chambers wrote: "Beware of harking back to what you once were when God wants you to be something you have never been." What if the thing God desires for us--that we've never been--is so far removed from our comfort zones that we cannot imagine drawing a deep breath? What if the center of His will is the spiritual parallel to sitting in a treehouse on a precipice of a cliff surrounded by mountains during gale-force winds? For someone like me who does not like viewing tall things or being out of control, that would be terrifying, just as with all things that require only trust--like when your young friend encounters another country with new friends to encounter amazing things. What if what we used to be involves trying to manage God and what we should do is rest in His management. Just a thought... Yesterday John and Christa met 3 couples and 4 active children with vital roles in Christa's summer. John talked PowerPlant with Gary Smith, and international law and the thrilling ride of work in inner-city Montreal with the Cadorets, with multilinguals in a dilapidated building. They learned that French in Maniwaki, Christa's late June home, blends the Cree Indian dialect with Quebecois French. What we used to be was a family driving Christa about 15 weekly hours to an international studies school. Now she has enrolled in God's School of International Missions. What is it you KNOW that God wants us to do; when you "do it, immediately, you know more"--about God, about yourself, about His work. In Christ, it's a short drive of obedience from what we used to be to what we can be.