What Is God Really Wanting for Us?

With the tragedies happening in the world right now, Cinthia encourages each of us to discover and remember why God has placed us on the earth.  With that in mind, today she discusses concepts from one of her books, God Wants You Truly Living (Not Walking Dead).  God is wanting us each to have a life beyond our wildest dreams, but it requires that we die to the things that get in the way of that – including, sometimes, the dreams themselves.

Ephesians 3:20 (Message version) says, “God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in you wildest dreams!  He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”  And John 10:10 (Amplified version) says, “The thif comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].”  This is God’s desire for His people. 

But what is life that is “abundant?”  Cinthia reads a definition of abundant that begins with the phrase “being more than enough without being excessive” and continues with an abundance of adjectives about fullness and profusion.  Our example of this on earth is Jesus.  Jesus’s abundant life did not include the things we often associate with abundance, the things we tend to think will help us live life to the fullest and achieve happiness.  In fact, happiness lies.  “God is not trying to give us “happy” as a goal,” says Cinthia.  “He knows happiness is an outcome of an abundant life.  The thief, which we know is Satan… realizes that, if I pursue happiness, I will simply be achieving pleasure, which only creates a bigger void in my life that must be continuously fed as it becomes bigger and deeper, screaming more loudly to be fulfilled.”  Consider the book of Ecclesiastes in which the wisest man on earth tried the life of pleasure—tried it well—and declared it meaningless.

Jesus demonstrated the abundant life.  He was free, had deep and meaningful relationship with God the Father and got His value there, had deep and meaningful relationships with others, had a clear conscience, and lived with a sense of meaning and purpose.  But there was something else that offered more power, more life, a separation from any other power or entity:  He was willing to die.  He was willing to die a literal, physical death for us and for the Father Who had sent Him.  But He was also willing to die to Himself, to what He could have tried to be separate from His Father.  His responses to the three temptations Satan offered Him in the wilderness demonstrate this.  How do we let God infuse this into us?

Jesus knew that, in order to be what He was created to be, He would have to do it the Creator’s way.  He had to trust that the Father Who made Him knew Him and knew the best way.  [Don’t misunderstand our use of the word “Creator” here.  We know the Nicene Creed says Jesus was “begotten not made” to express that Jesus existed with the Father from all eternity.  But, when He came to earth, He was knit together by His Father inside of a human mother.  This is the kind of “created” we mean.  Jesus, by Whom and through Whom everything had been created, took on the position of a created human being, and He showed us what it means to live as created human beings are meant to live.]  The Father’s way, the Creator’s way, was for Jesus to die.  God always goes first and sets the course.  He died for us and died to Himself, and this sets the course for us – dying to ourselves, dying to the things we think will give us life but that are, in fact, getting in the way of fulfilling the purposes for which God made us. 

So what has to die in order for you to live?  What has to die in you life in order for you to actually live for Christ?  Cinthia explains, “Not my way, His way.  He is the Creator; I am the created object.”  What are the things that are getting in the way of you being what He made you to be?  Cinthia continues, “We have a great God Who has gone before us and knows the way.  He does not grow tired, and He understands that suffering through death produces life.  Not only that, but He also promises that He will comfort us through the suffering…” and tells us in Psalm138:8 that He “will fulfill His purpose for me.”  You are not meant to do life on your own, trying to do it right and hoping God is happy with it.

Philippians 3:10 and Acts 1:3 describe the necessity and hope in this process.  We join Him in His suffering and death, but also in His resurrection.  He is alive!  He went through death and came back alive!  II Corinthias 1:3-6 (Msg) describes Him as walking with us through our suffering and loss and bringing us alongside others to be there for them.  Jesus is the consummate Servant-Leader.  He leads by example.  He walks with us and walks out His concepts.  Psalm 23:4 describes Him as with us as we walk through the shadow of death.  There cannot be a shadow without light.  What has to die in your life in order for you to fully live it?  This is an important time in history for each of us to recognize the purpose God has for us, to figure out the life He has planned solely for us and to do our part. 

There are two types of death that have to occur in order to produce and sustain life:  The first is the death of a good thing in order to become the best thing.  The second is the death of “the thing that is killing me.”  How many of us fight to keep alive the thing that is killing us?  Addictions, fear, relationships to which we cling even as they keep us from living the life for which God created us – Ask yourself, “Why am I walking out a living death?”  Both types occur simultaneously at different times of life.  Type One is beautifully demonstrated by the seed.  John 12:24-25 (NIV) says, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  An unknown author has said that we can count the seeds in a single piece of fruit, but only God can count the fruit that lies within a single seed.   Do not let the enemy minimize who you are, what you know, how you feel, what you want to do, and what your calling is.  Don’t let him talk you out of that.  John 12:24-25 in the Message version says, “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat.  But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.  In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life.  But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.”

Cinthia says, “I want to keep everything sometimes… I only want the things to die that I don’t like.”  But so often the good has to die to give way to the best.  Addiction is a great example of the kind of thing that has to die lest it kill us, but think beyond that.  What has to die in order for you, like the seed, to produce and sustain life?  We have to die to something in order for the thing for which we were created to live.  What won’t you let go?

A seed must die in order to have the life for which it was intended.  Don’t nurse and protect the seed.  Let what is inside of it burst forth.  Don’t abandon it because you don’t know what it is.  Water it and nourish it.  Do this because it may be buried at this time, but God has planted that seed of life within you.  So you need to trust Him.  Don’t be afraid to let the seed die, to break out of the shell that has housed it.  We are very used to our bondage, but God dreams of setting us free to produce and sustain life.  Think about the caterpillar as it turns into a butterfly.  Think about the movie Failure to Launch, which is funny but tragic in the truth it expresses about our culture.  Think about Adam and Eve.  When we go against creation and interrupt or impede God’s timing, the creation either dies or fails to thrive, and we are left with the agony of depression and despair.

So ask yourself, “Am I refusing to move forward in ways that are age- and circumstance-appropriate?  Am I resisting age-appropriate tasks?  Am I holding onto previous life stages, to behaviors and clothing and self-care patterns that are no longer appropriate to my current life stage?  Do I refuse to move forward with technology?  What do I want to ignore or deny?  Am I unwilling to go through the grief and loss process?  Do I hold onto a person, decade, paradigm, or belief system?  Do I allow a system that isn’t working to continue?  Am I willing to let expectations die?  Am I resisting a new season that is only going to happen anyway?  Am I willing to let go of my dream or my vision for myself or another person?  What are the birth pains that I may be ignoring or resisting?  What is trying to come out of me?  Am I resisting dying to self?”  Do not continue to resist what you know is natural for you to do – not those things that are natural in their decadence, but those that are natural to what God has created in you.

Consider Philippians 1:6 and Isaiah 66:7-10.  We don’t know the mind of God.  We cannot force to die what He wants to live or force to live what He knows must die.  The only way out is through.  You were born for a reason.  So what has to die in order for that reason to live?