Living to the Next Level Δείγμα

Being a “church boy,” I knew all the churchy New Year’s Eve cli­chés: The battle is WON in 2001. The Lord’s gonna bless YOU in 2002. Here comes your VICTORY in 2003. The Lord’s gonna give you MORE in 2004. We’re coming ALIVE in 2005. Well, almost all of those years had come and gone, and I was still waiting to get to that “next level” where my dreams would finally come true. So, I came up with my own slogan: “This is about to make me SICK in 2006!” 

I was tired of hearing, and saying, things like, “It’s get­ting ready to happen! Get ready, get ready, get ready!” It seemed I was always getting ready—getting ready to arrive, to go to a new level, to walk into my miracle. “Lord,” I said finally, “I want to live at the ‘next level,’ not spend the rest of my life waiting to reach it. Please, just get me there. I want to SEE something!” 

You may be feeling that way right now—as if you’ve been waiting so long for fulfillment in certain areas of life that you can actually feel your hair turning gray. Maybe you’re exhausted from propping up your hope only to see it remain just that—a hope. Maybe you’ve been so hurt or disappointed that you no longer know what or how to pray. If that’s you, then hold on. You may be exactly where God wants you. God works with our frustration. Often, He allows our frustration to build and come to a head just so we’ll be open to seeing things differ­ently. That’s what happened to me.

Once we choose friendship with God, our fulfillment isn’t a matter of get­ting to some new level in life. When we enter that friendship, we arrive. Friendship with God is the "next level". Once we “get there,” the journey of life in God with all of its ups and downs begins. The ups and downs don’t make us any less “there.” Consider the Israelites and their arrival in the Promised Land. Once they crossed the Jordan River, they were in the land. They still had to explore and take the land; they had some serious battles, enemies, and obstacles in front of them. But once they crossed the Jordan, they were living in the land God had promised them—the place of their dreams, the fulfillment of their destiny.

As God’s friends, we too are living in the place of promise. Rather than continuing to exhaust ourselves waiting for or striving to get to some new level—staying discouraged and interpreting struggle as a sign that we haven’t yet arrived—we can embrace a different perspec­tive. It’s time for a paradigm shift! If we’re already at the next level, let’s quit striving in frustration to get there. Let’s dedicate ourselves to learning how to live there: exploring, growing, and journeying in friendship with God.