STEALING THE GOOD LIFE

Those of you who go to the Vineyard here in Grove City will have some context for this post. Those who don't? Sorry...I won't be able to explain this completely, and the sermon it refers to is offline. If I can find a place to throw the MP3 on the internet so you can listen to it, I will.

Do you remember the first week of the Stealing the Good Life series? It was the one where Tom went through the history of Israel, basically. The whole message hung on one little verse, talking about the "descendant of Hakaliah...." verse in the opening of Nehemiah. "The time that you're waiting on him to do something is the point," he said. "It's what he's doing while you're waiting for him to do the thing you THINK he's doing that is what he's actually doing..." and then of course as the message and series went on, we learned that part of Stealing the Good Life is to get that God is working out his Good Life for you every moment. The Good Life doesn't live out there --------->like something that we are going to just someday attain, because the Good Life isn't a destination like that. We're not going to just wake up one day and "be there." RIGHT NOW is the Good Life that leads to the Good Life, because you have to fight for the Good Life, and the very fight for the Good Life is part of the Good Life.

So, with all that's happening...I have to ask myself - am I fighting for my Good Life? I know what it is. I know it clearly. Am I letting people push me around when I know so clearly what the Good Life is for me and mine? Maybe I am...maybe that's WHY things have been so nutty lately. Or maybe I'm not...and THAT'S why things have been so nutty lately.

Are YOU fighting for your Good Life? Not to even mention your wall and your people...and knowing what it is, and who they are and what you're supposed to be doing about it? But just right now - is it GOOD? your life? Does it resemble your Good Life?

That was the best series that Tom's preached since I've been here. The current one is pretty good, too...but Stealing the Good Life - transformational, huh? I've been listening to it tonight, and will probably listen to it again tomorrow. I remember thinking (and telling someone at the time), that I wasn't letting it soak in enough at the time. That it was overwhelming me. The implications of it, and what God was doing in my heart and life at the time through it, was simply overwhelming to me. May God continue to speak to me through it even now.