NEW POST

The first BG blog of the new year...I win!

Something that I've been feeling lately is this urgency for this generation to put an end to entertaining things that are below our callings. We spend our lives chasing the crowd, trying so hard to fit in. but I wonder how many of us will look back one day and realize that we were never created to blend in. I've been realizing that my goal in this life is to constantly position myself so as God pours Himself out, I'm in the right place to receive it. How many times do we think God isn't showing up and not giving us what we ask when really we aren't in alignment so we are actually missing the moment. I wonder how many times I've thought He was silent when really I wasn't taking time to listen. I wasn't making a sacrifice to turn off the TV or radio and I missed His voice. We were created with purpose, vision, and destiny. So everything we do, every choice we make is to be decided with the knowledge of who we are.
See, if I knew I wanted to be a professional Ballerina I would eat accordingly, wear the right shoes, get to bed at a certain time so I wouldn't be too exhausted to practice. I would begin to live for that purpose. You don't begin to dance when you're a professional, you dance to become a professional. You make a great sacrifice when no one is looking and that's what gets you to your destination. You develop habits early on that will get you the results you want. In essence even before anyone has seen me as a top ballerina I have to see myself as one because everything I do and choose will be affected by my vision. That is a concept that we use in many areas of life- in exercise, in a job, in a relationship. The greatest people in our history were those who lived according to the calling on their lives that was yet  to be seen.  Those who sacrificed for something greater long before anyone even knew who they were. If you knew you would be the President of the U.S. one day what you be doing today to get ready? What would you want to get rid of in your life to make room for the tools you would need to fulfill such a call? What if you were created to transform hollywood, or broadway? What if you were the next Mother Theresa? What if you were going to discover the cure for cancer?
See the reality is, we have all been created for some great purpose and this life can be an incredible journey to seek out everything God has planned for us. We've been invited to be a main character in the greatest story every written! What keeps us back? What is distracting us?
When I entered my teenage years I was so distracted by image and painfully aware that I didn't measure up to the cookie cutter image of beauty that comes from our culture that I began to give in to anorexia and then bulimia. I remember one day leaning over the toilet throwing up and I felt God firmly but lovingly tell me that if I chose to continue this I could actually miss my calling to sing. Well I was shocked! I thought He was saying He would take it away from me, but then He began to show me that the acid was actually beginning to destroy my vocal chords. My choices were actually destroying His plan for my life! That scared me so much. It was a battle for my destiny, my calling. As scared as I was I made myself go to my mom and confess everything. We spent months walking through the lies and I knew with each step this was going to determine my future. See I had to choose that I wanted a call over an ultra thin cookie cutter image. I think we underestimate the power of our will! God didn't force me to stop, He presented the truth and then I had to make a choice. Then every day I was faced with the lies again, I had to make a choice. My choices in that time affected not only me, it affected my sisters and their callings, and it affected many many more who have been impacted by our ministry.
Our choices can and will affect this world.
You are made for greatness. Many of us are just a choice away. Refuse to live below your calling.
Alyssa