How hard is it for you to get up when your alarm rings in the morning? How many times do you hit the snooze button? Have you noticed how accustom you have grown to an ignored alarm, that you no longer even wake up to it? Seriously, you can sleep right through your blaring alarm because you’ve trained your mind and body to dismiss it.
You don’t hear it. You’re not moved by it. You don’t respond to it.
Why? Because over time, you’ve ignored that alarm and avoided it, so it no longer moves you into immediate action.
Anyone see where I’m going with this?
God has given you his Holy Spirit within to guide you. It is not God’s desire for you to wander around aimlessly and perpetually confused. He’s not playing some sort of guessing game where he knows everything and you’re left to just worry and wonder. His Spirit prompts you like an alarm, but if you’ve been dismissing those promptings, you’ve likely stopped even noticing them.
Honey, God’s been trying to wake you up and divinely guide you to walk in his great purposes, but you’ve been hitting the snooze button. After you hit that snooze button on his promptings for so long, you stop even thinking about taking action. You’re perpetually dismissing the alarm that says, “wake up and do this”, then you wonder why you no longer feel led by God at all.
You’re still being led, it’s just you’ve gotten into the bad habit of dismissing his leading.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve discovered I can’t be trusted with “later.” I’ll do that later. I’ll make time later. I’ll get going on that later. NO I WON’T. Me and later mix like water and oil. I have a proven track record that shows if I push what I’m being told to do now into later, it won’t be done.
Are you the same? Can you be trusted with “later”, or do your good intentions slowly dwindle into inaction? You do understand inaction is disobedience, right? When God prompts us to do something, and we hit the snooze button on it, delaying our action, we are stepping into the dangerous grounds of “later” which soon turn into disobedience.
Stop dismissing what God is telling you to do. He is guiding you. He is leading you. The problem is, we’re turning off the alarm.
Romans 8:14 “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”
Let me flip that. Are you a child of God? Did God create you? Do you acknowledge him as your Heavenly Father? Yes? Then YOU ARE LED BY HIS SPIRIT. That’s plain and simple. He is speaking to you. He is calling you. He is guiding you. He is leading you. Constantly and continually.
The alarm has been ringing. Maybe you haven’t been getting up. Maybe you’ve been hitting snooze on his promptings. And maybe you’ve hit snooze so many times, it’s become an automatic subconscious response to dismiss the alarm without you even being aware. You think God isn’t speaking to you, but he is. You’ve just gotten used to ignoring it so you no longer hear it.
I spent this past weekend at our BIG Life Mission Retreat. There, I was surrounded by impossible things being made possible. Totally unrealistic things becoming reality. Children with such traumatic pasts that they had been thrown away and never expected to be capable of leading whole lives, walking in full restoration, being made totally new, and stepping into greater purposes than ever imagined. Girls rescued from unimaginable situations, coming to us and asking if they could pray for us. Yes, pray for us … the women who came to help them, they turned and helped us.
Why? Because God was ringing their alarm, and these girls are learning to respond to the alarm and be radically obedient instead of hitting the snooze button.
Can we do the same? What would happen if we did? What would happen if we took the next step when God says go? What would happen if we reached out when God stirred us? What would happen if we showed up feeling totally unequipped and incapable, but we believed in a greater power working within us?
Let me tell you what would happen … Impossible things. Unrealistic things. Things no one thought possible.
The mission we partnered with is 99+1. It’s a humble family who have taken Jesus seriously when he said in Matthew 18:14 “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”
They don’t have the money or the means to accept every broken child whom foster care has failed. It’s totally unrealistic for them to take on the 18 year olds who have aged out of foster care and have no where to go. It’s the most ridiculous thing for them to think they could possibly have a huge beautiful facility that gives these precious souls not only a place to call home, but to have the most gorgeous coffee shop to work at and gain valuable skills for their future.
None of that is even slightly realistic. But it’s exactly what we are witnessing unfold. God rang the alarm and all he needed was for his children to wake up and answer in faith. Every time God has said, “do it”, they have done it, and the impossible has unfolded. Every time God has said, “yes”, they have believed and it has happened.
It doesn’t make sense. There shouldn’t be another bed available in their home. There shouldn’t be enough money, time, or help to pull off such a huge project. There shouldn’t be such a huge unfolding of God’s power in the middle of absolutely Nowhere, Oklahoma, but there is! Why? Because God’s people have gotten up and responded to his Spirit when it rings. And God’s Spirit isn’t limited by any law.
Galatians 5:18 “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
We’ve created all these laws which say if you reach this point, you’re too far gone. We have rules that tell us this could never happen because it’s way over your head and out of your reach. We have guidelines which tell us we can go so far, but only this far, but then we stop. So, our laws, rules and guidelines of realistic expectations limit what can and can’t happen.
BUT WE ARE NOT UNDER THE LAW! We are led by the Spirit of God Almighty, and that Spirit doesn’t play little! That Spirit isn’t limited by limited resources. That Spirit isn’t confined by stories of the past. That Spirit isn’t restrained by what is realistic.
If you want in on the big, impossible things God is doing, start by saying yes to the little promptings today that you’ve been dismissing. If God says, “message this person”, then girl, message that person. If God says, “take this next step”, immediately lift up your foot in faith.
Remember, you likely can’t be trusted with later. Later is your snooze button. Later has taught you to dismiss the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Later is cheating you out of opportunities aligned by your gracious Creator who has nothing but good plans for your life.
If you’re no longer hearing the alarm after years of ignoring it, then ask God to give you another chance today. Ask him to prompt you today, then you be rip roaring ready to do exactly what he directs you to do.
Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela
Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com