Now that we’ve grown up, we realize how serious life can get. We see the evil, feel the weight of responsibility and challenges and stresses. It is so easy to decide it is time to set aside the childhood hopes and dreams and joy and fun to get serious about life. But maybe we just need to remain childlike.
The following is a journal entry from Ruth Morgan.
Good morning, Lord. Is it enough that my only ambition, vision or dream is like that song: “to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly day by day”? Sure I want to see the sick healed, demons cast out and disciples made, but I hope those things will simply arise out of obeying You in all the small things You nudge me to moment by moment. I’m supposed to ask You what are the desires and dreams You have for my ministry, business, marriage, finances, children and health, and each on a different day.
Ruth, people look at your life, especially your marriage and your family, and they see joy. They see your joy and it baffles them because of all you’ve been through and all you are still going through. You are a living message of life and hope. You are teaching people to love well, to abandon themselves to My work in their lives. You do not have a visible ministry; you do not need one. You are a beautiful poem being crafted in front of a crowd of onlookers. Your life is a witness to My goodness. You have found Me to be your loving, faithful Father and are falling deeper in love with Me. Other people see that and say, “I want what she has got.”
Don’t overthink it, Ruth. Continue to dance with Me, play in the waves; I have given you a beautiful childlike spirit. You don’t need to feel any pressure to shake that off and grow up. It is not childishness. I have given you great wisdom, but it is in the demeanor of a free child at play. Go play, go create, go let that joy continue to bubble up and out, and minister to a lost and hurting world.
Joy, a Merry Heart and Peace Do So Much Good for Me
The kingdom of God is joy and peace (Rom. 14:17) and a merry heart does good like medicine (Prov. 17:22) because these kingdom emotions turn on my immune system so I can effectively fight off diseases. Americans have lost 1.6 years in longevity over the last year. We were already 49th in longevity out of 200 nations, and now while European nations lost five months in lifespan, we lost 1.6 years (source date links here). Wow! I sure don’t want to be trapped in whatever the American approach to health and long life is.
This is serious. We don’t want to be one of those statistics. And I sure don’t want to get negative or pessimistic for many reasons: 1) It ruins my health; 2) It ruins my joy and peace; 3) Leadership is automatically passed to those who remain optimistic, and I sure want leadership passed on to me rather than to the ungodly.
Our good friend and adviser Roger Miller told me the above principle at the close of a prayer meeting at the church I was pastoring about 40 years ago. It jolted me, as I was being pessimistic at the time, and I also wanted to be a leader. I realized the truth of what Roger had just said. I considered it a rhema word from the Lord to me: Stop moaning if you want to be a world-changing leader. So now that statement has been made into a beautiful poster that sits on my desk so I never go back to moaning.
“The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully” (Deut. 28:13, NASB1995).
Church, let’s lead through the anointing of the Holy Spirit and see His promise extended during our lifetimes! {eoa}
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