If you haven’t read the first article on the subject of sacrifice called “Sacrifice – At What Point Does It Matter”, please do so before reading this one.  I opened the first article discussing the sacrifice of men trying to find and save a solider called Ryan in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. The main premise is that sacrifice by both God and man should move us to respond by giving value to the one who gave.

The topic of being spiritually and emotionally paralyzed will be covered in a total of 4 parts. If you have not read the first two parts, I would suggest reading them first. This is Part 3 and we will be covering a root cause that many fear looking at. It’s a target to look at when trying to figure out and overcoming the problem of being spiritually and emotionally paralyzed.  Keep in mind that all of us have a tendency to look for a “silver bullet” fix and resolve our problems no matter what they might be. The truth is that life is often more complex than we care to realize and so are the problems. That being said, there are answers to resolve this problem of being paralyzed in our lives and a passage from the Gospel of John is a good example.

I spent time with a good friend in Denver, Colorado this week and was gripped with a fresh awareness of just how good friends are. We are meant to be encouragers in this life rather than consuming our time and energy purely for our own comport.  How sad when friends gather together with just entertainment as their main objective. We are called to do so much more if we only would listen to the Spirit of God and surrender our will to the Creator who can make our life count for something other than just being a consumer or just for entertainment.

So often we go to counseling to help us unravel our past to reveal the things that might have had a negative impact on our lives and therefore cause us to respond to people or behave in some negative way. There is a lot of good that can come from counselors who are gifted in discerning and unraveling past issues and encounters, but have you ever heard of a person going to a counselor and asking the question of why they behave well and make good sound decisions? I’ve been counseling people for nearly 40 years now and in all that time not one person has asked that question.

Everyone has gifts that they are born with but those gifts need to be identified and nurtured in order to materialize and make a difference in their lives and the lives of those around them.  Leadership is just one of those gifts one may be born with but never realized for many reasons. I believe many will go to their graves without ever identifying their God-given gifts and talents partly because those that had the power to help them didn’t mentor them or because the individual themselves weren’t willing to put in the effort to nurture their own souls to develop their personal gifting. This may sound a little cold and calculating but I believe history will back this up. I do not believe we are solely a product of our environment but are a combination of others, ourselves and God’s purposes in our lives. The question often comes up…….Isn’t God’s will always done? Isn’t he “Sovereign”?

Life has a way of showing us just how complex things are. I think when we are young we expect we can do almost anything until we have accumulated some failures under our belts. As bad as failure often feels, it teaches us what will and will not work; at least in the simple things. As we grow in knowledge and wisdom, we discover that some things can be challenged even when past experience has taught us otherwise. Failure is not always going to be failure if new elements are added, just as success doesn’t always work because something new has been added to change the outcome.

Early in our lives, we don’t know our limitations. Experience has a way of teaching us what we can’t do as well as what we can if we strive for understanding. If we are fortunate, when we are young, we have people cheering us on, though some have struggles from the beginning. The point is that we all have to determine whether to let life’s ups and downs control our future or whether we will reach for the understanding that will unlock the potential and purpose that we were created for.

When we are young our road is pretty well-marked out for us by our parents, but as we get older we normally are given options rather than being told what to do. What talents and gifting do we have? Are we mechanical or intellectual and what life path will we choose? This is the normal progression to maturity. However, there are a lot of variables that can affect the outcome of our journey in life and our success or failure.

I have traveled in about 48 states of the US and over 40 countries of the world and one of the most frustrating parts of my various adventures I have taken is when I have a map that is either incomplete or down right wrong. Sometimes I think I wish we would go back to paper maps! Remember when you would go to a gas station and buy one? That was before cell phones in a galaxy far, far away. In Charlotte, NC where we now have lived for over two years, the maps are often wrong or incomplete even through I have a 2018 vehicle. There are so many new roads that the electronic maps can’t keep up. In fact, the highway that is a beltway around the city doesn’t show the shortest routes to many northern destinations because it shows the Hi-Way as being incomplete, which it’s not. What I have experienced is that the maps on your car are often 4-5 years behind your cell phone map.

If you haven’t read the first part of this subject on God’s “Unfailing Love”, please do so as it will make more sense starting from the beginning. We are dealing with the “Myth” of God having “Unconditional” love rather than “Unfailing Love“. As I already stated, the concept of God having and extending unconditional love to humanity is a creation of the 20th century and it is found nowhere in the Bible.