Pressing In Together With An Open Mind

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14

I was going to do a Gratituesday post today, because I'm still grateful for the wonderful weekend we just had with family. This was one of those weekends where there just wasn't any tension. There was no elephant in the room that people weren't talking about, and there was just nothing to get abuzz about. It was relaxing and calming and wonderful to spend time with loved ones. But as I thought about posting about that this morning, I really felt like I needed to go deeper this morning. So if you're looking for a few somethings to inspire you to be grateful, don't forget to check out the weekly event at Heavenly Homemakers.

What I wanted to talk about is really about how God speaks to Andy and I sometimes as a couple. There have been many times over the last few years where it clearly becomes evident that God is trying to tell us something, and then we regret that we hadn't noticed it earlier. Sometimes it's also difficult for us to identify when something is just for us, and when something is for both of us, or our family. We especially notice that God is trying to get a message across when we're both in a season of pressing in and pressing forward. And we both have definitely been doing that lately.

Last year, early in the year, I really was experiencing discontent with our church situation. It just wasn't feeling like it was somewhere I wanted to be. I quietly kept that to myself, because I thought my hubby was happy where we were, and as the head of the household, I thought that in one regard, in where we go to church, he was going to have the final say. Lo and behold, half a year passes, and it comes out that we were both feeling the same discontent. Had we only thought to mention it our talk about it, we could have spared ourselves a lot of unpleasantness. Of course, God uses everything, and we made important decisions and changes, and you would have thought we learned a lesson about telling each other when we were experiencing a shift in our mentality about something.

Apparently we didn't learn our lesson very well. Well, maybe we did, because over the last six months we've made a lot of changes and decisions for our family- the big one being the transition to homeschooling this next school year. For the most part though, we've just been quietly gliding along, trying to get deeper into God's Word in our own ways. Except that for the past while, I've had that feeling again. That niggling in the back of my mind, the discontent with a situation, and I really thought it was just me. I really thought that it was something I needed to discard and ignore and just be grateful with the circumstances. At the exact same time, Andy's been feeling the exact same thing, and has even been discussing it with other people, looking for confirmation, but not wanting to share it with me, in case we don't agree I guess. (I know that was my reasoning.) Well, last week on our drive out to my aunt and uncle's house- we have 3 hours to talk during the drive- I finally brought up what has been bothering me. Wouldn't you know, he kind of starting laughing and said that he had his confirmation right there. It was crazy. We both went from being apprehensive about a situation to totally agreeing and making a huge decision.

Once upon a time, my husband thought he was being called to be a Pastor. He was getting a little frustrated, because he really felt he had that calling, and I really felt that he didn't. (I still feel that, by the way.) In his bit of frustration, he had a discussion with my great uncle, who is a Minister. My uncle told him that when God calls a man to be a pastor, he also calls the wife. So when the time comes for me to hear that same calling, then he will know that he has found his calling. And that totally made sense to both of us. I still don't think my husband has a pastoral calling over his life- I just think he has been confused that the calling to minister is not the same as the calling to be THE Minister. Andy certainly has an appointment with God, but what it is has not been revealed to us. The whole point of this little bit here is that when God speaks to a husband and wife, He speaks to both. He speaks to both people- sometimes individually and in very different ways. It's communication between the husband and wife that can bring the confirmation that both are craving.

And so, with a big decision made, yesterday I took the biggest step of faith and did what I needed to do. And we'll see what happens. God indeed has plans for us, and we're going to continue pressing forward to see what He has for us. We're pressing in for the prize, and along the way, we'll take whatever journey God wants to give us.