Living Towards The Future Today - Oct. #ForgeMore2020

Navigating Our Future - What if there was a way to perceive the future and make critical decisions and adjustments? What if we had a guide to lead us into the best possible path for our future? It can happen... but it might not look like we’d think. Here’s a story:

For years I lived as a single guy in a house un-fit for a future including a family. One day my dad said to me, Your mother and I have been praying. We’re hearing you’re the one to buy your grandmother’s house. There were many issues with Grandma’s house. I.E: My ~100-year-old grandmother was living there and doing fine. The basement often flooded. The property needed remodeling. So, in my own chambers, I quickly rejected the idea. As I pushed back on ‘dad’s idea,’ I even felt an (immature) twinge of self-determination.

My precious parents, being people of prayer, kept it before the Lord. A short time later, dad brought it up again.
Why is he bringing this up again? I thought. I’ve clearly said I didn’t want it! Yet, even as my face reddened, the Holy Spirit spoke, Son, pray. Seek Me first. God then led me to a quiet place and confirmed this was Him. I heard it clearly. So, I gave God a pouty, immature, ‘Okay. I’ll do it.’

Then came the years of writing checks, making sacrifices and having little access to the house.
That season held a huge question mark about the future of the house. But God…

In 2005, several unforeseen transitions began. I met and later married a wonderful wife. Career and family shifted. Things opened up in ways I couldn’t have foreseen. Then, September, 2007, grandmother peacefully went to be with the Lord. So, in late 2007 into 2008, we renovated the house with more answers to prayer. My new, small family had a wonderful new place for our new story. It’s very sobering to ponder what would have happened in this story had I stubbornly doubled-down based on my own ideas. I couldn’t see what the future might hold. God’s word made little sense to me. All I could offer was blind obedience. Yet God used this agreement to pre-position us for the best possible future.

When we’re called to move in faith, there’s always gonna be an easier choice on another hand. The Story of Grandma’s House is one of many stories of God delivering divine results when His children, (imperfectly), listen and obey.

The Distilled Editon:

God is outside of time. He loves/longs to bless. He offers us a Walk-With-God-Way-of-Life… a way of oneness.
He often leads us in ways which conflict with our natural choices. God knows what’s ahead. He’s holds our future. He’s already in the future.

God invites us to live in ways we would choose if we could see that future.

Here’s a Few Givens:

We can’t figure it out. We’re not God.

The ‘With-God-Journey’ is based on a ‘With-God-Way’ – Living by faith, not by sight.

We can have God or we can have understanding. We can’t have both.” - GK Chesterton(?)

Reality is like an iceberg. Most of what’s really going on is not seen. What’s unseen is greater, deeper and more substantial than what’s seen.

It’s entirely possible to receive divine guidance to make decisions toward our best futures.

When things move from the invisible realm into the visible, God’s answers often look different than we’d expect.

Let’s take Him up on the wild, unpredictable, joyful ride of fully trusting in Him.

I’ve come to give them life, and that more abundant.
– John 10:10.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. James 1:5

For the Forge Team
-Tom Calton