It’s been a while since I’ve posted – 20 days, to be exact. It’s always been my practice to try to post every week, but I’ve made a commitment to myself not to post just to be posting, but to wait until I think I have something worthwhile to say.
We had our yearly planning time from January 12-16th, and during that time we discovered that we had run out of vision. By that I mean that for years we’ve had a clear call from the Lord to homeschool our children in a specific way that would prepare them to be young men and women who would love the Lord and serve Him in ways that He would show them and us.
We’ve been praying and working toward that end for over 20 years. Now we are there, but seem to have run out of vision for this period of our lives. We’ve chosen to do a number of things differently than a lot of families, and we still feel that is the Lord’s plan for us, but we just don’t know the next step or steps.
Or perhaps we do, but we aren’t willing to do the things that will be required for us to move on.
We decided to seek the Lord and ask if there are things He has already asked any of us to do that we haven’t been faithful in or have just plain refused to do. We’re not talking Ten Commandments here, but things that the Lord has required of us personally that He might not ask of someone else. None of us have had any difficulty coming up with several things.
Two things we do know He wants us to do are:
- Be a family that is in the Word.
- Be a family that is not only in the Word, but one that is obedient to the Word.
Since our planning times are basically times of seeking the Lord’s will for each area of our lives, we decided to go back over the plans we made during our January 2010 planning time. We found several areas where we had great ideas or plans but never really put them into action, failed to make progress, or started out well but dropped them after a few weeks or months.
We began to sense that we had been given specific directions but had failed in several areas to follow through on what the Lord had asked us to do. Some of these things had been on our list for several years and we just kept saying they were great ideas, but never put them into practice.
We were reminded of this verse:
Exodus 13:21 “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:”
What would have happened if the children of Israel had one day decided not to get up and follow that pillar when it began to move?
We felt like that was what we had done. And now we found ourselves without a vision for the next step because we hadn’t taken the steps the Lord had given us already.
What do you do when you discover the pillar moved and you didn’t?
Acts 3:19 “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,”
These words from David Wilkerson explain true repentance:
“The full, literal meaning of the word “repent” in the New Testament is “to feel remorse and self-reproach for one’s sins against God; to be contrite, sorry; to want to change direction.” The difference in meanings here rests on the word “Want.” True repentance includes a desire to change!
Moreover, simply being sorry doesn’t constitute repentance. Rather, true sorrow leads to repentance. Paul states, “Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10)
Paul is speaking here of a sorrow that’s without regrets — one that’s genuine, that “sticks” in the life of the repentant person. This kind of godly sorrow naturally produces a repentance that includes a hatred for sin, a righteous fear of God and a desire to right all wrongs.”
You can read the full article here: http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/1990s/ts990802.html
Often times our “repentance” is more like “I’m sorry I got caught” than realizing how we’ve offended the Lord with our refusal to obey.
After truly repenting we selected those things that we thought the Lord was still speaking to us and by His grace we are putting them in place and working toward following the light He has already given us.
Are there areas in your life that the Lord wants to put His finger on and you aren’t willing to listen? Take time today to ask Him to show you what you’ve left undone, and then turn back, repent, and begin to walk in the light you’ve been given.
Be sure to check out our Purposeful Planning materials which we used during our planning time.
Finding Joy in the Journey,
Phyllis
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Phyllis Sather
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3 Comments
Stacy
You are so right about the repentance thing. Too often, we see people who are sorry they got caught, but not sorry they sinned.
Christi
This is beautiful. This is convicting. This is encouraging. Thank you for letting this simmer until the words came out refined by the washing of HIS Word to you.
This has touched me so much that I have linked to it in my extra blog today…Without vision the people perish…but sometimes, it’s because we closed our eyes.
Good word!