"Strike The Match" - Too

 "Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come." (John 7:8 KJV)

  ""For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."" (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT)

 If you might be wondering what this title, "Strike The Match," is all about, it speaks about reaching your full potential, which requires taking a risk; sometimes, if not all times, taking a risk, means that you give up something to gain something better and more valuable in the end. The main inspiration for that title was the last portion of this verses, where Jesus says, "For my time is not yet full come." 

 Unlike Jesus, our time is fulfilled day by day: we rise up and then lay down to sleep, hoping to rise again in the morning to try again. Not as if we accomplished what was meant to be done, but the day has been complete when the day is done, there is really nothing left that we can do in that day. Jesus, on the other hand, always had everything in order; even if interrupted, the supposably unplanned event was seemingly always the plan that was meant to happen. 

 It might not seem like things are going your way, but God's ways are always seemingly His ways, not our ways, which we usually always think we have figured out. We cannot figure out God's ways, because they always involve things that are hard to see and cannot be known fully. Even when they are seemingly done and over with, they keep moving forward, doing a work that He is doing, which continues way beyond what we can see, even way beyond our life on this earth.

 This much is perfectly clear: God is in control, He knows what He is doing, and He knows what we are going through! He totally and completely gets it! We never have to remind Him or ask Him why! If you are on a plane and the pilot changes direction, we don't really need to know why, because we are not the pilot, but only a passenger. As long as the destination remains the same, the route that gets you there can vary based upon all sorts of different conditions. 

 At this point in the story, I am not quite sure who it is that strikes the match, God or me; but I am pretty sure who controls the fire...

"See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more, shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:25-29 KJV)