Holy Discontent

Seems like several of us are in a season of “discontent”…. Some of us have peace in our restlessness, while some of us just feel so uncertain it’s hard to “live”… we just sort of “exist”…

I was fortunate to get some time with Jeff Henderson of Buckhead Church last week, and he said something to me that should have been obvious a long time ago, but for whatever reason when he said it, it just sorta’ stuck...

He said “The best thing about where I am today is I would have never picked it – this was not in any way anything I could have imagined or created or planned for….. therefore I can take no credit for it.”

He referenced a few times Bill Hybels, Holy Discontent, and how God will unearth in His perfect time something very specific for each of us… and it will most often not be anything we could have planned for ourselves. It’s not to say that those of us that always dreamt of being a fireman or doctor or whatever who actually grow up to be those things, that we weren't ordained by God to do so... but what Jeff was getting at is that there is more of a specific purpose in what He intends for us in life that we shouldn’t try to unearth on our own. Otherwise, our pride will never allow that role to be covered in His grace.

So we are to embrace the discontent, and just as today’s timely as EVER Utmost so eloquently says, “Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision.” What is more, Oswald encourages us by asking, “But don’t lose heart in the process.”

Too often we try to take His vision and make it our own… we take the restlessness and try to create our path towards the inevitable goal… (e.g. Sarai/Abram & Hagar…). But in doing this, we are only selling ourselves short of what He has in store for us.

Oswald says today, “If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.” Instead He hopes that we trust Him in waiting for our TRUE “Holy Discontent”.

p.s. I’m going to read the book – maybe we all should!!

~T