the unexpected.

Day after day the Lord continues to bless me with His love and overflow of His goodness :) Words can't simply describe. As a new semester approaches and new beginnings occur, I am excited and amazed to see what the Lord is doing and continues to do in my life. As doors open and some others close I am reassured that although some things I cannot understand, He is doing a work. I spoke with a dear friend today and was reminded that sometimes we have our schedules and lives all planned out according to what we want to do and what we think God is calling us to. Lots of times we're correct... and what we've prayed over and succeeded in, God has provided and led us all the way. But there's also certain times when we have it all figured out. We want to be teachers, accountants, business men, and we KNOW God has led us so far a way to bring us there... but then something happens... He turns our hearts, and He changes the desires and needs and makes them into an image of Him. I will say that has been the situation occurring in my life. God has totally taken me on a 180 path and although I can't quite see down the path clearly... I will continue to take steps in faith and see where God is leading. Sometimes He tells us to forsake all. It's in those times He has the GREATEST and most rewarding plan for our lives.

Chris Tomlin's book "The Way I Was Made" is incredible for people called to an unoardinary life. I quoted the book before, but I hope this other passage ministers to you as you pray and seek the Lord's will in your life... and that He would give you clear direction on where He wants you to follow Him to...

"Can you look back along the road of faith and see how God has graciously led you along? I can. When I made the choice not to go to grad school, but to trust that God was leading me to travel and play music, it was a risk. There were no guarantees. The next ten years were not mapped out on my apartment wall. But I'm so glad I took the step of faith. I've felt the wind of God blowing many times through that choice, sometimes at almost gale force. I've seen lives change, beginning with mine. What about you? Think about how different your life could be in one year or five or twenty if you listen carefully for the wind of God in your life and respond. If when the Spirit whispers, "See that road? Take it," you say yes. You could be part of starting something really big. Not that you'd know it when you walked out the door. God rarely works that way. He sure didn't with Abraham. You remember Abraham. One day, the wind of the spirit gusted into his life. God said:

"Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1-3)"

We don't know exactly what Abraham did next. Did he run God's message past his accountant? Did he think about it for days or weeks? Did he finish getting his degree? Don't know. But here's what we do know: "So Abraham departed," the Bible says, "as the Lord had instructed him." When God says, "Leave," are you ready to hit the road? He's probably not going to ask you to walk out of your dorm room or apartment today. More often He'll ask you to leave behind comfortable assumptions, competing commitments, mixed-up-priorities, a wrong relationship, a "must have" list of conditions. But when we say yes to God's invitations, big things happen--or atleast become possible for the first time."