Why I’ve Stopped Chasing My Goals

  

Happy new year all! I hope that it has been just as happy as the phrase commands and if your new year has not been a bed of roses (maybe that’s the wrong saying because a rose bed would be quite prickly) maybe if your new year has been a bed of roses, thorns hidden amongst the festive cheer, then I hope the year to come brings the happiness that has escaped the season. The new year is usually laden with corny phrases and lacklustre determination to achieve the goals that will make this the year that changes it all. For some lucky lotto winners this is literally the year that things started looking up with the addition of two more mere mortals turned millionaires, but for the majority of us it’s singing the same ‘new year, new me’ tune, people begin to question why they’ve been out on the planet which comes alongside a drive to find ones purpose and for those who feel like they’ve found it, a list of resolutions to help them achieve it.

This year I have missed the new year self transformation boat and January has felt like the 13th month of the year, with the only difference being the waves of excitement I feel in knowing that this year I will tie the knot and marry the man I can’t wait to do life with. Not a single New Years resolution in sight, I have stopped chasing for the new me that I hadn’t seen fit to find in 2015. 

What’s changed?

1. I’ve accepted that the old me was already on a journey of improvement which has continued on

2. I’m so excited about 2016 I haven’t had the times to fret about my shortcomings and to worry about what my future holds.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slating those of you who have written your list and are trusting God to help you achieve everything therein. It just dawned on my that there is more to life than chasing goals and wishing you had a raison d’être. Before you pick up your pitch-forks let me explain the blasphemy.

What am I grasping at?

Do I firmly believe you are created for a purpose? Yes

Do I want you to achieve all that God has for you? Yes 

Do I want you to be consumed trying to figure out what you’re meant to do, whilst life passes you by? Definitely not

All I all I just can’t muster the energy to make January all about me.

It is important to have a vision and to follow up that vision by setting goals, but it is also important to not get blind-sighted trying to find your purpose you forget to use the gifts you know you’ve been blessed with for the purpose we all share. Whatever my goals are, if they don’t play a part in loving the Lord my God with all my heart and all my soul or loving my neighbour as I love myself then it’s likely they fall into the self gratification scheme of things or the get rich motive many of us keep on a back burner.

There is a lot of benefit in using this year to get fit and to progress in your career but if the only person you’re loving with your goals is yourself, I think now is the time to make room for some more. 

A couple of days ago I sat opposite a woman on the tube who was clearly fighting tears. As I searched in my bag for something resembling tissues a was relieved I could offer her some unused Pret serviettes which she accepted and then let the waterworks flow. I sat opposite her and I squirmed. Should I get up and hover next to her trying to speak to her through the glass on the end of the carriage or should I crouch in front of her and completely freak her out by trying to not tumble and speak sense at the same time? After a couple of stops of debating with myself the woman sitting next to her got off and suddenly I was faced with a whole new dilemma: to move or not to move. I’d just been tweeting about speaking to people you wouldn’t normally speak to and I could see God staring at me asking if I was going to be all mouth and no motion. I decided to man up and began a conversation that started with small talk about tissues and ended in us sharing a genuine squeeze as she thanked me. I didn’t do much. I didn’t preach about how Jesus could save her from all her problems, even though I believe he can. I didn’t use it as an opportunity to talk salvation and the imminent nature of hell, despite being fully aware of the importance of giving ones life to Christ. What I did do was lend an ear and offer a hug midway to a stranger who looked like she needed a cuddle.

I’m not sure what your purpose is, I don’t even know the full extent of mine, what I do know is that we are commissioned first and foremost to love. First our God, and then each other, and with each breath we need to make it our mission to do so. 

“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭13:8-10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Instead of #newyearnewme Why not use 2016 to see where love can take you. I can say I love therefore I lean in for an awkward hug with a crying woman? What will you let love cause you to do. If you have any experiences where you’ve been able to step outside of yourself to show love I’d love to hear about them 🙂

Love lots,

Dani

Basic Philosophy: I Watch Film Therefore I Re-evaluate Life

I’ve always found it quite amusing when people classify the whole of society into just two groups. You must have heard them say:

“There are thinkers and doers’

Or

“You’ve either got brains and beauty”

And

“There are leaders and followers”

They sound quite catchy as slogans but what do they actually mean in the tangible sense? Can’t people that think also follow their thoughts through with actions? Are the prettiest people in the world the least intelligent? Even leaders are following someone! These ‘observations’ reveal their irrelevance one you try and see where you fit in. You try and compare your intelligence to your appearance and end up stumped. You wonder who in their right mind would ever classify themselves as a follower. I’m not even going to bother with the first one because it’s so abstract and nothingy it can’t really be trying to make a claim about real people in the world.

So why do we do it?

Apart from the people just trying to appear to have deep philosophical thoughts, I reckon it’s because we see something in others that we don’t quite see in ourselves and assume others must share this divide. Last Thursday was my moment. I went to watch the premier Handle with Care and alongside being thoroughly impressed, I watched the credits roll thinking ‘wow, some people are pursuing their passions’.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29‬:‭11‬ NKJV)

God has done pretty amazing things in store for us, but it’s pretty much down to us whether we run towards our destinies

So leaving the wishy washy life observations aside, let me give you some philosophy 101. You have premises and all those premises need to add up to the conclusion.

Premise 1

We all have a purpose

Premise 2

It is impossible to die both having completely fulfilled your purpose and having not fulfilled it

Conclusion
Some people will die fulfilled and others will not.

I don’t about you but I intend to strive after everything God has for me.

ThankYou Lord for giving me things to hope for.

Love ya

Dani xxxxx

The Day I Went Completely Blind

If one more person asks me what I want to do with my life I may just have to go into hiding. (It’s either that or start a fight and seeing as I’ve never had a fight in my 21 years of living, hibernation seems the safest option). Firstly It’s a really unfair question, why would I be any closer to figuring out life just because I’ve graduated?! Secondly, it’s rather intrusive, why do you want to know my 5 year plan, what ideas are you trying to steal? And lastly it’s really unbelievably annoying. Every time someone asks I pause and take a slow steady breath as I figure out how to best put ‘I haven’t the foggiest clue’ in the most creative way. I used to offer, “I see myself in strategy in the distant future”, or “ultimately I’d like to consult charities”, but now I’ve given up trying to convince people that I know what I’m doing and reply with “something that pays my bills” until the other person changes the subject. Shoot me for not having direction but I really am tired of pretending to know where God is taking me.

When I was running my own life A.K.A the time before I met Christ, I could tell you exactly what I wanted to be, but one day I gave it all up (decided to follow Jesus) and the clear path in front of me went from being a fuzzy haze to a pitch black hole. When I was 11 I started to lose my sight, and here’s my version of the benefits of living blindly.

1)You don’t always have a clear sense of direction

I was one of those children that could tell you exactly how their life would pan out if everything went according to plan. From the age I was going to go to drama school, to landing my first major role, I could even tell you when I was going to get married and let having children interrupt my thriving career. Then I gave my life to God and my tune slowly changed. It went from adding ‘God willing’ at the end of sentences about my plans for the future to, actually asking God for life direction to letting God plan my day. I’d wake up having agreed to spend time with particular people or honour invitations to events and when I’d lay my day before God to see what he’d got planned his response was something along the lines of “oh you thought you were going to be doing x, y, and z today… lol nahhhh”.

Now when people ask me where I see myself in 5 years time I want to reply, God hasn’t shown me that far ahead, and be done with the questioning. I think there’s a thin line between waiting to hear what God has to say on a matter and using waiting on God as an excuse for being lazy but we can’t let that put us off seeking God’s face daily.

2)You have around 0% control

Have you ever played that game where people are in pairs, one person is wearing a blindfold and the seeing person has to lead the blind one to a destination with just the sound of their voice? If so then you know what it’s like to live according to what God is saying via the Holy Spirit. No matter how tired the blindfolded person is of following and how much they want to be in control, it would make no sense for them to start giving directions. I think we forget that God can see the future because when he’s telling us to turn left, even though we’re busy wearing our blindfolds and so can’t actually see what would be best for us, we decide to chip in and convince God that we should be turning right.

The amount of times I’ve ignored God because what he was saying seemed illogical and then after realising that he was right had to repent, I’ve given up thinking I know better than Him. ( I know, why would I even think that in that in the first place?!?!) What you lose in control, you gain in the certainty that God knows what’s best.

For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord . ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. Jeremiah 29:11

3) You’re forced to live by faith and not by sight

So there’s pros and cons to living blindly but even when things seem like cons as points 1&2 do, the overall result of living blindly which trumps everything is that: You become completely dependent on God. When you’ve stopped relying on what your eyes can see and started listening to God’s voice it doesn’t make sense to stop listening half way through the directions and decide you can do it yourself. I think it’s because we have such tendencies to take over that God doesn’t reveal every step of the journey before we begin. Knowing us we’d assume we knew better despite the blindfold we’re wearing. Of course everyone likes direction and feeling like they’re in control of their own lives, but handing the keys over to God and sitting in the passenger seat mean you’re being taken care of by the king of kings, lord of Lords, creator of the whole world, alpha and omega who can see your whole life and wants what’s best for you.

And the Lord said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
And Moses said to him, “If your presence does not go with us, do not take us up from here.Exodus 33:14-15

Moses didn’t want to go anywhere where God wasn’t going to be and we can learn a lot from that. For some of us, the way we make decisions is by asking “how much money will it make me” or “what are the chances of receiving an opportunity like this again“, but what about asking God what he wants? Nobody wants to end up half way down a path and realise that they’ve gone in the opposite direction from God’s plan.

Following God does feel a bit like you’ve lost all sense of the vision you once had but what you gain is so much more than the pleasure of knowing where you’re going: knowing that God is with you.

Love ya like yam and corned beef stew

Dani xxxx

Why Am I Still Single?

I’m not sure whether this has happened to you before, maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. If it hasn’t, I’m going to to set the scene for you:

 Your friend invites you to a gathering and to your surprise it’s not completely boring – in fact, it’s becoming the best night you’ve had in a long time. Conversation is flowing, everyone is having a great time and then the person you’re talking to you suddenly says:

 You’re so great – why are you still single?!

This startling (and arguably offensive) question reminds you of the not-so-subtle hints and questions you’ve been receiving in what were once safe environments.

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It all began the year I graduated from university; I noticed that when the women from my church would pray for me, ‘a god-fearing husband’ was suddenly on the menu of blessings. From that point onwards, I began to notice a shift in other areas; young women I had known for years would drop sentences into our conversations such as ‘so when I get married’, wedding ideas were casually being thrown into discussions and my Facebook newsfeed became an array of engagement rings and relationship status updates.

What was going on? What had I missed?

Let it be known that I had no real problems with weddings (except that they were long and there was rarely enough food for everyone). Even though I wasn’t really sure why people were so excited about marriage (if it was so easy, why were there so many divorces?) my main concern was the assumption that because I was a woman and above the age of 21, I should be seeking a man to settle down with.

There is a deep-rooted cultural and religious belief that we are somehow completed when we meet our life partners and that this is when our lives truly begin but this simply cannot be true. As a Christian, our lives begin the moment we surrender to Christ and true completion can only be found in him. He is the One, our soul mate, our true love – and all those other mushy western concepts.

It is so easy to get sucked into that weird world of ‘waiting’ but before I jumped on the eager-to-be-married-bandwagon, I decided to ask myself a few questions:

 Do I believe I have an individual purpose?

God created me with wants, needs, hopes, dreams and most importantly, a purpose. Now while I believe that some of our purposes can be linked in some way to other individuals, I also believe that if our purpose were completely dependent on another, we would have been born in twos. Since we were not, I am forced to conclude that… wait for it…there are things that we have to accomplish as individuals and certain parts of our journey that we have to walk alone.

Am I lonely?

Loneliness is an issue we don’t really like to talk about because it makes us seem weak, feeble and needy, but it is a state that a lot of us experience – some of us experience it every single day. Every time I am lonely, I begin to question how far I am standing from God. It says in the Bible that God will never leave me (Deuteronomy 31:8) so whenever I feel alone instead of reaching for my iPhone, I do my best to reach out for him because he is always there.

 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

Real, real, real talk: if you are Christian who is constantly jumping from one relationship to another because you desire constant communication and validation, I urge you to look to God; the one that stays and never leaves (Joshua 1:5) and the one that does not forsake (Deuteronomy 31:6). I hope that you will also come to see the finished work of the cross (John 19:30) as your constant source of validation. Remember that there was a man that loved you enough to lay down his life for you in the hope that you would one day come to love and accept him. He loved you even before you could love him. If that doesn’t make you feel just a little bit special, I don’t know what will.

Am I seeking to be the perfect spouse or am I seeking to be like Jesus?

Okay, I get it; you wouldn’t try and sit an exam without revising (unless you’re me and it’s GCSE time) so yes, it is important to prepare yourself for marriage. However, the Bible speaks more on striving to be like Christ than it does about journeying to become the perfect spouse.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

1 Peter 2:21

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Ephesians 5:1-2

Every time I feel like I am getting somewhere with God, I inevitably become complacent; a day will pass where I haven’t set time apart for him or a situation will arise where I respond inappropriately. There is internal work to be done and there should a constant movement towards the person God called me to be because that it my ultimate goal.

Have I forgotten that there is a time for everything?

There is no rush and there is no decree that I must be married by *insert arbitrary age here*

 For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Doing things in my own strength and my own time usually has disastrous consequences. Sometimes I’ve got to shake myself and remember that I am  worth having and that my spouse will be worth the wait.

This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.

Habakkuk 2:3

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I know that my stance isn’t a popular one at the moment. I should be telling you to wait patiently in your bedroom praying, hoping that the One somehow finds your address and knocks on your front door but that would be poor advice. There are many other Christian blogs which will detail heavily ‘what to do while you wait’ and that’s great, it really is, I just feel that we have shifted our focus and have begun to idolise marriage. This is deadly  because it will never live up to our expectations or withstand the burden we are placing upon this sacred union. There are many more important things (outside of marriage) to be achieved and seeking God about those things should not be neglected whilst you ‘wait’. Marriage is a beautiful thing, but life revolves around Jesus – he is the One.

Your Single Pringle,

Joy xxxx