Welcome! One, two, three, let’s UNITE!

This is it.  The first words on a whole new blog. If you haven’t noticed yet, Rich Faith Rising has just moved from blogspot to a dot com.

And you are one of the first to stop by as I tweak and twist this site, hopefully eventually it will morph and begin looking like the site I envisioned in my long overdue, and thoroughly practiced procrastinating head.

Oh please be sure, I have weighed heavily the words placed on this new address.

I am not going to lie, it is humbly, daunting, even scary to think, that like a brand new house, fresh with white paint, what I do or don’t do, will greatly season, and flavor, and send an aroma of something out into the wide web world, otherwise known as the bloggersphere.

Yet, I am reminded how each time my husband and I have remodeled a house, we have sat, waiting, me frozen at the first chance of painting over white primer…

But then I remembered, this space isn’t mine, this web address housing isn’t my work, my handiwork, anything I can build up or even take credit for.

For all fresh painting, all second chances, all decorating of the lives of God’s people is only a work of grace.  And just as we didn’t make our physical beings, we cannot make anything good come out of what we are creating…only God can do that.

And I am reminded of The Creator.  How it’s easier not to follow.  How it’s safer to walk where others have conveniently taken us.

But the Creator designed us to be Creative Ones. 

And if we are to be as we were designed and made for, we too must step far off the ledge of safety, pick a color, and grip tight the paintbrush…

For beauty doesn’t come in hiding in safe corners, in doing what’s trusted, and safe, and predictable, and expected.

• The fishermen were raised to catch fish, but Jesus called them away and called them to catch men instead.
• The prostitute, I am sure she lacked job skills, and training, and influence…yet, she left all she knew and clung tight to her Lord, seeking love not for sale, seeking a man that gives and not takes.
• The Pharisees, so trained, built walls around their religion. Making additional regulations and being the Lord over who coud and who couldn’t get into their systems…but Jesus took worshiping out to the streets, He defied man made rules and systems…and He dictated them to live by the law of love, instead of believing their rights of passage were somehow enough.
• Oh the tax collector, I see Him. Hoarding to fill that hole that greed and riches can’t get rid of.  The more he gets the emptier he’s feeling.  Yet,  Jesus enters into his house, and instead of a giver, He finds giving the true blessing.
• Paul, that self righteous one, thinking he was serving God, but really kicking against the goads. Condemner of Christians, thinking He was saving the world.  Yet, when Jesus stopped Him, and found Him, closing His physical eyes and opening the eyes of His heart in ways he had never known, He not only converted but began discipling. Once an enemy of the true God, now the spreader of the gospel and one who walks in redeeming grace.
• And then there is David, the one after God’s own heart.  Broken at His sin. Singing though the choices he had made took away his very son. And though death tried to rob him, life was found in his song, and instead of slaying Saul to take his inheritance..He became devoted, and dedicated, patient and willing to let God do things his way, in his time, or for his glory.

And I think about how I could sit with this blank canvas.  Afraid of the call, afraid of the following. Leaving it white, because risking is hard.

Yet, bravery isn’t standing and never failing, bravery is standing and standing and standing again when you think, “This is it, I just cant go on”…

Because from the little I have ever really learned about God…He doesn’t pick strong people, like Sauls or Goliaths.  God picks the weak, the last called, the least likely…

And He uses them so that He will get to the glory.

So that is my prayer today friend, not that you will try harder, work more, fix faster, produce farther, never fail, or find some epitome of perfection…

My prayer for you today  is that you will stand and keep standing, that you’ll pick up the paintbrush and refuse and keep refusing to let the house of your heart, the tapestry of your life remain white, dull, colorless…empty.

That you will take chances, risks, make mistakes, learn as I am trying to tweak this website over the next couple of weeks.

Because, none of us have everything.  All of us need a God to rain on us when the walls of our lives cry out for more than common, empty, bland, ineffectual.

And I thank God that He is the Creator, the Original maker of you and I….

And that we can truly walk like faith giants…not shrinking, hiding, timid, waiting…but rising out into the open, stones in hand, lives filled with a God who placed each dream, each purpose to bear fruit out from us, in the own individual promised lands.

UNITE

We are now on our way to our very first UNITE here at Richfaithrising.com.  Will you join us?  It doesn’t matter who you are, how you write, or what kind of post you want to share…

All that matter’s is that we join forces, stand in the gap, and reach out in the bloggersphere and grab hands.  Because life is short, and let’s face it friends, we need each other.

To join, just add a post. link back, the comment on a post or a a few before yours.

That’s it!  Glad to have you!