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Uncharted Territory (a Timeless Truths blog post)

Are you the type of person who has to have a plan before venturing out into the unknown? Do you try to figure everything out down to the last detail to avoid any potential problem from occurring and catching you off guard? If so, it may take not only a step of faith but, rather, a leap of faith to go forward into uncharted territory … the area where you don’t know exactly what is going to happen or how things are going to turn out. You may feel like it’s safer to just keep things the way they are … perhaps, even, the way they’ve always been. However, the danger in doing that is that you aren’t really living life to the full, and, in fact, if you never dare to take any risks you are, in reality, in danger of hurting yourself … hurting yourself by not living up to your full potential, not “getting out there” to interact with others God may want you to interact with to share the gospel message, and, actually, in danger of hurting your own spiritual walk with God if you’re not daring to trust Him to lead you and guide you in the way He, alone, knows is best for you. According to dictionary.com “uncharted territory” literally refers to anything that isn’t plotted or planned and is often figuratively used to express a wider unknown. So in both the physical and nonphysical senses, it can mean “not yet mapped, surveyed, or investigated.” Most likely, Abram (later renamed Abraham) felt a little nervous (to say the least) when God directed him to leave his familiar world and travel to an unknown land (an unknown territory, if you will). So, too, with us. If we feel God directing us to “get out of our comfort zone” into the realm of the unknown, we, too, may feel a little nervous (or a lot!) However, it’s always better to face our fears than run and hide from them (think of Jonah and the whale!) We need to trust that – with God on our side – nothing we face is too hard, too difficult, or too unbelievable for us to overcome … as long as it really is God directing our path and not us directing our own path. Proverbs 3:5-8 The Message (MSG) says, “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; Don’t try to figure out everything on your own.  Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He’s the one who will keep you on track.  Don’t assume that you know it all.  Run to God!  Run from evil!  Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!” So, the timeless truth for today is this – whether you are facing the everyday, mundane events of life or whether you are facing uncharted territory – about to take a leap of faith – in either case, remember that you can trust God in any and every situation. He already knows the end from the beginning. He already knows what’s going to happen next. He has proven Himself faithful time and time again (not only to you, but also to all the people in the Bible who have lived before you). He is absolutely trustworthy, faithful, and true. He will never let you down. And, to top it all off, we have this promise we can hold on to from Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV): “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” 

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When God closes a door He opens a window

Transition periods are not fun. However, when God gives you a new perspective, everything changes. Your spirit goes from feeling down and depressed to uplifted and hopeful. Such is the case with me at this stage of my life.

As I was in the process of finishing up writing Whispers to the soul, I was sensing in my own spirit that it was time for me to retire from writing books and “just” maintain a blog on my new website to keep the books “alive” to the public. I didn’t know what I would write on the blog – just that I was going to need to write “something” at least periodically. After all, I had done all the work writing all those books … and I didn’t want them to just fade away. I still wanted people to know they existed. I still wanted people to buy them. To read them. (Even if they only read sample chapters from them … even that would be fine with me … at least that would be something to know that my efforts weren’t all in vain.)

Then came this morning. I read a devotional and, after pondering it, God gave me a new perspective on my whole situation.

It wasn’t that I was going to be “just” writing a blog to keep my books alive. It wasn’t that I was going to be “stagnant” or going backwards or that I was going to have to try to come up with something more to write about the books that were already “out there” when there was really nothing left to write about. No. Instead, it was that I was actually going to be going forward. I was actually going to be allowed the privilege of writing a blog. I was actually being trusted by God to let the Holy Spirit lead me and guide me in knowing what to write and when and how … it was like a revelation. It was like God had trusted me to write all those books for Him, and now He was trusting me to take this next step of faith into the unknown – not knowing what the blog would look like, not knowing what exactly I would be writing about or how often… or, really, much of anything for specifics … just that this is what God was leading me to do next … for Him.

Then, realizing that it wasn’t really about keeping the books “alive” like I had originally thought. No. It was really about keeping my “voice” alive – about keeping the voice of all that the Holy Spirit put into me that needed to be shared with others alive. About continuing to let the Lord speak through me whatever He put on my heart to speak … just like with the books, but now, with the blog. But now, without all the pressure that comes with writing books and everything that goes along with it. But now, with freedom … freedom to just “speak.”

And so, here I go – just speaking what’s in my heart on this day – being led by the Holy Spirit to share my story with you in hopes that it will somehow inspire you to see things from a different perspective than you may have seen it before – a perspective that leads to you feeling the way I feel now – hopeful, nervous, and excited all at the same time. Not knowing what God has in store, but knowing – since it’s God – it’s gotta be something good.

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