My daily dose of revelation today came during our morning intercessory prayer meeting. On Thursdays I run the sound board and Pastor Brad, our youth pastor, runs the meeting. We shared the needs from our congregation and missionaries.  Brad shared his devotional and then released us into private prayer for about 20 minutes before calling us together to pray over the needs.

As I settled into my spot in the sunlight I heard God tell me , “Just be still and know that I am God.”

As I wandered down the holy rabbit hole deeper into the presence of God the Lord began to show me that fulfillment in life comes from obedience to God’s plan and not from results. He showed me that I am called to the journey of ministry and that I am wired in my inmost being to receive satisfaction from obeying that calling. He showed me that when I pursue the calling, satisfaction comes from the proper pursuit NOT from the fruit.

All my life I have been taught that success and satisfaction lie in reaching the goal and the goal is to outdo everyone else. I see now when that relative said “J. will never be a success nor will he be able to take care of himself.”  He was speaking out of his paradigm that success and caring for oneself meant having the most and being better than everyone else; Because of this I have understood excellence only in the context of competition and so I had no need for excellence because I didn’t want to compete with anyone.

The Lord has shown me, though, that excellence is found not in reaching the goal ahead of everyone else or better than everyone else. In fact excellence does not deal directly with the goal at all. It deals with the way I walk this journey. Excellence deals with how fully I obey the calling of God. Excellence is found in being true to God in living. I see if I can just be true to the calling…if I can just focus on following God I will be satisfied and God himself will take care of the results. How liberating is that?!?