In order to be fully utilizable by God, however, we need to be willing to throw in our towel, give up our purposes, find out what God needs done, then, keeping our minds focused only on Him, proceed cautiously forward, letting Him pave the way.

I believe that we are all prone to error on the side of doing too much on our own. It is kind of like God gives us an idea and we leap all over it, hardly giving it time to breathe, before taking it and running with it. Now, it appears, we have found our purpose. God held out a meaty bone and we, like a dog, grabbed it and ran to bury it in the carnal world, or show it off, proudly, before setting up another fake kingdom, next to all the other fake kingdoms, all lined up in a row on Carnal Street, with hawkers trying to grab everyone as they walk by, so they can tell them why their kingdom is the best—ordained by God, you know.

God isn't about giving us one idea so we can continue to perpetuate our own godless worlds. God is about giving us all we need, forever. I often hear preachers preach about spending time with the Lord. Praise God for this teaching. Will anyone hear this? When things are going along okay, we tend not to want to rock the boat. God rocks boats. If we are His and become complacent, He will rock our boats, shake up our comfortable lives. We don't realize how important it is to be uncomfortable so that the Comforter can show us His comfort—and not the comfort we would fabricate on this planet. The desire to “press in” just isn't there when things are going smoothly, is it? We want to run toward our worldly security. But has the world ever been a security for us? When we put a wall up to protect and preserve our earthly lives, we have, in a sense, chosen death. Many churches even do this, establishing a community of ministry unto themselves instead of ministering to the dying world outside. There is a self-sufficiency that arises and gone is the desperate brokenness that draws one near to God.

Because we are God's children, only God can give us this initiative so that we are motivated to release our lives completely into His hands. God won't go beyond our initiative and do it Himself because He is absolutely in love with the free will He gave us. It tickles Him no end to know that, when we do make a decision to leap into His arms and be fully cared for by Him at all times, He knows it won't be because He made us do this. It will be because we purposefully and deliberately decided that we are astounded at how wonderful God is and cannot for the life of us, figure out how we've gotten by for all these years, without Him involved in every single aspect of our lives.

Perhaps you who are reading this, may have made a decision that you kind of like the setup you are in. It gets you by. Your family is well-cared for, you have plenty of worldly toys to keep you happy and a mild interest in God. Perhaps you attend a mid-week service and a Sunday service or two. Every night, you might say a quick prayer of thanks and I say, “Praise God for this.” I am happy for you, I really am.

Now is the time, however, to make the leap out of the comfort zone and into God's Zone where a kind of acceleration takes place. Again, you won't feel like doing this, but this isn't about what you feel like doing. This is about reaching up to God, which stirs Him to reach down to you. This is about deciding that you are tired of walking down “Main Street, world” and accepting everyone's notion that what you see is what you get and it is best not to try too many things, or get too close to the fire, or think, “Maybe it is best if we leave well enough alone,” or “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

God's children, enmeshed in, but not really wanting the world, must work tirelessly to allow God to work consistently through them. I didn't say work, then check with God briefly. I said ALLOW God to work through you. The work, you see, is in learning to back off from dominance. Our work is in desiring a developing relationship with our Father as we learn to see His scope, His depth, and His absolute penetration into every aspect of our lives. The carnal world does not portray God this way. God is, instead, to be occasionally consulted or if it is a dire emergency, screamed for.

Please, decide right now that you don't want a normal life anymore, as the world judges it. The adventure begins with a decision to “press in” to God. In fact, there is a parable which Jesus shares about a crooked servant who was discovered being dishonest with his master and given the boot. Before he left, however, he made sure he had good relations with all the debtors by giving them good deals on their payoffs. What this did for him was assure him a support system. Jesus actually complemented the thief by saying that the children of the world are more likely to persevere and work tirelessly, to find ways of preserving their lifestyle, than the children of light do in reaching for Him.

Jesus was telling us in this parable that God's people don't strive to attain Him and His ways. They are willing to settle for what is given to them rather than “go” for God with all they've got. They don't know they are, in fact, cheating themselves of God's abundant life which just waits for them if they will climb out of Doldrum City. If they were totally of the world and were losing their jobs, nothing could stop them from scouring the newspaper ads and preparing résumés and asking around to see if they could find another position. God, who always loves us and will sustain us with His life forever, unfortunately will not outright tell you that you are hanging back too much and that He'd like to see you want to want Him more. This is something we each must do based on a deliberate, decision making process.

Are we up to it?

Perhaps not yet. I liken it to being willing to don a silly costume to go to a masquerade party. If you are shy and easily hurt because people might laugh at you, you will not put on the silly costume nor will you go to the masquerade party. But, your new job that God has for you is at this party. You have to get that costume on and go to the party to find out what it is. In this world, that silly costume is your willingness to get to know your God by loving Him in prayer. Truly knowing Him by taking time (even though it seems ridiculous to do this) and deny the world's pull on you to do something else.

Once you start dropping every learned thing you think you ever knew about God and about prayer, and just humbly drop to your knees to be with Him, you will be getting ready for the party. Though it may take weeks, or months, God will joyously observe that another of His children is preparing to enter the Holy of Holies, the place where the peace of God resides within. He will, at this time, begin an encouragement process where, in dreams, or in other ways, He will acknowledge your willingness to accept the abundant life His Son, Jesus, promises is for you, beginning now! This is also called opening the door on which Christ had been knocking, asking for entrance. He stands, knocking on everyone's door, patiently waiting for us to invite Him in.

Besides being an absolutely awesome God, it is incredibly amazing how courteous He is. I know, due to my own success in pressing in to Him, that God actually takes time (out of His obviously busy schedule) to acknowledge one of His kids who is stepping out of the worldly box of “normalcy” and consistently pressing in to Him. Isn't that great? Interestingly, He will do this EVERYTIME He has given you an assignment and you have completed it. Everytime!

I have a reservoir of acknowledging dreams that God has given me and when I close my eyes to be with Him, I pull up one of these dreams and my heart flies into His Heart and rests there. There is no doubt at all that He is orchestrating my life and I am excited to do His will, whether it be writing a song or a book, praying with a stranger, or just quietly sitting in His presence, I am absolutely thrilled to be working for “The Man.” But when I first started pressing in, I didn't have anyone telling me that God would be acknowledging my efforts later on. In fact, I was taking other people's and the Bible's word for it that He existed.

But now, I relish in the knowledge that my God smiles as I inch my way toward Him. He encourages me daily as I decide to be interested in His will, rather than my own. He laughs as I joyously deny the power of the world, which would like to decide for me that I have no time to discover Him.

Remember, God rules, the world drools.

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