Me, God and My Tennis Shoes
A Teen's Guide to a Closer Walk with GodBy Gwendolyne walterAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Gwendolyne Walter
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4685-4259-2Contents
One God Calls Us in So Many Different Ways......................................................1Two Acknowledging the Call......................................................................9Three Waiting on God's Timing...................................................................17Four Embrace Times of Nothingness/Nurturing—It's A Precious Commodity.....................23Five Seed Time & Harvest........................................................................31Six Go, Go, Go, You Can Do It!..................................................................37Seven The Ups and Downs of Success..............................................................45Eight Fighting the Good Fight of Faith..........................................................53Nine Technology vs. Time With God...............................................................61Ten But I'm All Alone - You Can Make It Without Conventional Support............................71
Chapter One
God Calls Us in So Many Different Ways To do so many different things
There is a call upon your life. This statement has been recited by those who feel that they have insight to the special abilities, gifts and talents that God has given you. I choose to name this group of people the identifiers. They help us identify the direction that God wants our lives to take. They, the identifiers, usually make statements like, "I think God has called you to be a primary school teacher because you work so well with younger children." Intuitively we become—The Called. Truth be told, we all are The Called. God has called us all to certain destinies. He has called us to be significant in His family, the Family of God. Some of us He has called to be teachers, doctors, lawyers and scientists. This list can go on and on. The lists of academic pursuits are numerous. This list also is paralleled by spiritual pursuits as well—missionaries, preachers, pastors and musicians. Spiritual pursuits—I call furthering the affairs of the Kingdom of God.
Ahh! So what path do we take? To be or not to be a scientist? To be or not to be a teacher? To be or not to be a cheerleader? To be or not to be a band member? To be or not to be a missionary? These are the questions that we all must answer. Please allow me to review that infamous line from Shakespearian play of Hamlet I that I have loved since I first heard it many years ago:
"To be or not to be that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the pains of an outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them" . . .
Shakespeare, while not a twenty first century Biblical scholar, in this passage, he voices one of the aspects of choice that I want to share in this first chapter. This Shakespearian thought challenges us either to accept the negative voices of our environment (outrageous fortune) or end all negative circumstances (sea of trouble) that speak against our future by declaring success (by opposing end them).
Therefore, early on in the race, you must be prepared to deal with the challenges that will oppose your beliefs and your dreams. These challenges oppose the call on your life. In the word of God, you can find truths that will strengthen you in the faith. You can declare that "I Am A Winner" and "I Will Succeed" in the areas that God has called you to today. Today you are in your present current destiny. I say current destiny because destinies have variances of change as we progress through life. I want you to embrace wherever you are in life right now as you strive to proceed to the next place that God has determined for you to go. Are you in elementary school? Middle school? High school? College? Trade school? Well, wherever you are this year is your current destiny. Be happy and grateful for this current stage of your life. Rejoice in the now-ness of your life. Celebrate your life now as you plan for and pray for the success of your future.
In the 11th chapter of Mark and the 24th verse, Jesus says that if you have faith in God, don't doubt in your heart and believe those things that you say; you will have what you say. Whatever things you ask for when you pray, believe that you will receive them, and you will have them.
This fabulous scriptural declaration summarizes three primary points of this book ...
1. Have Faith in God
2. Don't Doubt
3. You Can Have What You Want
Wow! This is wonderful.
So Many Different Ways
God knows how to get your attention to direct and steer you into the paths that He has destined you to run your race. There are many voices in the world that compete to get your attention. There are organized schools of thought that have developed strategies to persuade you to embrace and support their ideologies. However, God will always illuminate the pathway destined for you. Open up your heart and your ears. Expect to hear and see God's directions and you will.
God is so awesome and sovereign. He has so many ways that He can use to let you know the direction in life that He wants you to take. God is extremely diligent and thorough in laying out the race that is set before us. When you ask him sincerely, He will let you know what path He wants you to take and what race He wants you to run. God will send to you identifiers from whom your heart will be happy to receive advice and accept. God knows to whom you will listen and respect. To this end, I encourage you participate in positive inspirational activities whenever you can. Go on field trips and special outings—don't be so quick to say "Awe, I don't want to go." Go! Sometimes you will gain fresh perspectives about your concerns when you leave your normal routines and experience new or different activities. The prophet Jeremiah had such an experience. One day God advised him to leave his routine daily tasks and take a field trip to the potter's house. While there, Jeremiah received a divine revelation and answers to his concerns by watching the potter do his work. God allowed the potter to be an identifier in Jeremiah's life and a great inspiration (Jeremiah 18:1-6).
Identifiers That God May Send Inspirational Activities
1. Family 1. Positive Songs
2. Friends 2. Positive Movies
3. Teachers 3. Traveling to See Other Environments
4. Counselors 4. Wholesome Literature
Be warned—for every identifier that God sends to help you find the right way that you should go, there will be a negative influence that will try to hinder your progress. These negative influencers may be friends or situations that will try to get you to go down a wrong path that will cause you not to be as effective as you could be in winning your race. Altering your path opens the possibility of you losing the race. God certainly does not want that to happen and neither do I. God has a winning plan and strategy for all of us. Even when you make a mistake and wander away from the best path for your life, God will provide another plan to get you back on track and back in the race—full throttle and full speed ahead!
So how do you know what is your destined path? Listed below are several clues that every winner must ask themselves and know the answers loud and clear! Your assignment for chapter one is to answer these questions to the best of your ability. Your answers are important. Here is wholesome truth—your answers to these questions may change over time, from year to year! As you listen to identifiers, experience new adventures and go on field trips—your vision for your future may change. God may reveal hidden talents and truths about yourself as your experiences in life increase. But go ahead and get started. Answer the questions based on what you know and feel today. Next year or even next month you may review the answers you have written for these questions and have to revise them to new updated answers. Let the analysis begin.
Analysis for Chapter One
Clue #1—In what activities do you like participating? What do you call fun activities?
Clue #2—What do your family members whom you can trust, say that you are good at doing?
Clue #3—What do the people in your life like your teachers, counselors and friends, who talk positively about your future, suggest about your career choice?
Clue #4—What are the academic subjects that you like best?
Clue #5—What are your strengths? These are tasks that you can do really well, your natural skill set.
P.T. (Personal Testimony) I remember when I was a freshman in college; I enrolled as an undeclared major. My schedule had all basic classes. The following year, my sophomore year, I declared my major in Mechanical Engineering. Most of my identifiers were cheering me on saying, "Yay! What a great choice. Gwen you can do it." However, much to my surprise, there was another group of my friends that opposed my career choice. I remember vividly one friend who was very critical and tried to talk me out of the decision that I had just made. After talking with her, she walked away and suddenly indignation awakened in me. I said in my heart I'm going to have to show her and all of those that oppose my dream, that I can achieve this goal. Fast forwarding to the future, four years later, I graduated from Prairie View A & M University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. As an extra bonus, God blessed me to graduate in the top 10% of my class, Summa Cum Laude, Yay! Praise the Lord!
H.T.C. (Here's The Challenge) Be wiser. I challenge each of you to make career choices as soon as you can. Seek divine direction for the decisions that you must make for your life. When you pray, ask God to direct you to make the best decisions ever for your future. You may want to go to a trade school. This is a great choice. You may want to be a cosmetologist. This is a fabulous choice. You may desire to be in full time ministry. This is a wonderful choice. Yes, you can ask God for wisdom for the choices for your future, and He will liberally give it to you. I'm counting on you to be wiser.
Chapter Two
Acknowledging the Call
Now that you have completed the analysis assignment given in Chapter One, you should have at least one clue about the direction you want to take in life. I know this elimination exercise may seem a little frightening at first. Making a choice in one area causes you to let go of other areas of choice. But that's okay—it is important that you make a choice. Acknowledging the results of your analysis—is similar to acknowledging the call on your life. When you take ownership of a direction in life, it helps to silence all the other voices and choices on the planet that compete for your attention. Early on, your choice can be general in nature, but eventually you must fine tune your selection. For example, from your analysis, you may feel that you want to be an educator by majoring in the field of education and that's a large general area. As you move forward toward this goal, you will need to decide what type of educator you would like to be (e.g. elementary, high school, college) and the subject you would specialize in. However, for this chapter, let's just make a choice. Now that you have made that choice, you can target your thinking and perspectives towards activities that support this choice.
Something incredible then begins to happen once you acknowledge the direction that you feel that God has destined for your life. Once you make a decision, your inner person (spirit) begins to love the choice that you made. It's mysterious and it is definitely a supernatural God provoked phenomena. Even if you do not know everything about your career choice and all of the requirements that you will have to complete, you will begin to love your acknowledged choice.
In the PT section of Chapter One, I referred to my undeclared major status as a freshman in college. During my freshman year, I investigated various career choices. One field I considered was political science because I thought about becoming a lawyer. I made an appointment to meet with one of the student advisors of the Political Science Department. It was a good meeting and I gained helpful insights in this academic area. However, after that meeting, I knew in my heart that political science was not the choice for me. My psychology professor asked me one day to remain after class to speak with him. He noted my undeclared major status and complimented my achievement in his class. He suggested that I consider majoring in the field of psychology because I seemed to grasp the fundamentals of this class so well. After leaving that meeting, I reviewed the pros and cons of his presentation and once again knew in my heart that psychology was not the area for me. That same year at a holiday family gathering I had a conversation with one of my cousins, James Hodge, who had completed his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering. Knowing my indecisiveness, he asked me had I ever considered majoring in his field, Engineering. I said, "No, not really; I think that curriculum may be too difficult for me, and it's probably not the career choice for me." Then he said some of the most profound words that I have ever heard. He said, "It's not too hard, and I think you can do it." Now this simple compound sentence does not merit the classification of academic profoundness based on its own modest structure. However, what made these words so special to me is that God allowed them to identify a possibility for my future that I could receive and believe. The supernatural power of God made these words connect with my inner spirit and to me it was profound. I called this conversation with my cousin a Ramah word moment, a divine utterance.
After that holiday season, I returned back to school and made an appointment to visit with the student advisor of the College of Mechanical Engineering. This was indeed a good meeting. Everything this advisor said to me agreed with my inner spirit. At that time, I really didn't know all of the requirements of this career choice. I just knew this was the choice for me. Another phenomenon was taking place as well, the importance of all of the other voices and choices began to diminish. I no longer desired to visit for inquiry other discipline study groups on campus. I knew I needed to be with the study groups in my discipline, engineering. As I completed each semester, year after year, I grew to love and respect my selected field and choice of career. I felt warm and comfortable working each semester in the College of Engineering; this was indeed where I belonged. I just loved hanging out with my new found friends in this academic discipline.
In the Old Testament book of Genesis 49:1-28, God defined the 12 Tribes of Israel. These tribes were families of the nation of Israel. He gave each tribe (family) a specific call of duty. Each family was blessed in various areas to preserve the Nation of Israel and do the Will of God. God places gifts and callings in families. So in your quest to find your direction in life and acknowledge your calling, start by analyzing the gifts and skill sets that already exist in the lives of your family. Some families are known for their academic achievements in various fields: medicine, law, education, engineering, plumbing, electronics, construction, etc. The list goes on and on. These families have generations of successful family members in their various fields. You may be destined to follow in the familiar path of the family in which you were born. In my family, there are many educators, scientists and ministers. Therefore, it was quite natural for me to be interested in these fields and even be active in these fields at different seasons in my life. My advice is to investigate the callings that are evident in your family. It may be a comfortable natural fit for you to choose a career field that already is prevalent in your family.
On the other side of this argument, sometimes God will call you away from familiar family traditions and trends of careers. God does call some of us into the unfamiliar. He will direct you to unfamiliar places and career choices. God directed Abraham to go to an unfamiliar place that he had never been. God went as far to say to Abraham, "Leave your country—place of familiarity; leave your kindred—all of his relatives and from thy father's house—the traditions of your upbringing, and go to a place that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1-3). End of story—Abraham obeyed God and was blessed. Let me just say for the record that for the most part God for is not going to call you to pack your bags and go to another country like Abraham when you are 13 years old. However, if cross country travel is in your future, a way will be made for you to do so. God is so gracious and kind that He provides enlightenment for our pathways and will direct our footsteps by telling us where we should go and what we should do. Just like He was so kind to Abraham and gave him crystal clear directions, God will do the same thing for you.
Let's end this chapter with this prayer together.
Father, I thank You that your love and kindness is greater than life. My life is in Your hands, and I know that You have a divine plan for me. I thank You in advance for providing me signs and signals that will direct my choices for my future. I thank You for all of the people that You are going to allow to cross my paths that will encourage me and help me run the race that you have destined for my life. It is truly a beautiful life that You have given me, and I will praise Your name for the rest of my life as I become the person You have called me to be. Amen.
P.T. (Personal Testimony) Which way to go? When I graduated from college, I had three engineering job offers in three different cities in the USA—Los Angeles, California, Kansas City, Missouri and San Antonio, Texas. I prayed a prayer for divine guidance. I prayed, "Lord, give me clear directions about which job offer I should accept." Figuratively speaking, I put my request on the altar of the Lord. These are two of the signs that confirmed my choice: (1) I took the three job offers written on the letter head from these three companies to my pastor during this season of my life, Dr. C. L. Robinson, and asked his opinion. He advised me to choose Kansas City; then (2) I had a dream of me packing my suitcases and driving out of Texas to my new job. These signs confirmed my choice—Kansas City, Missouri. I lived and worked there for three years and had a wonderful time. God truly blessed me while I lived in Kansas City. Hallelujah!
H.T.C. (Here's The Challenge) Expect divine direction from the Lord for every major decision that you have to make in your life. Through His love and kindness, He will direct you. He desires that you find the path that He has destined for you. And here's a really great thing about God—He will give you the signs and confirmation that you can receive and believe. Pray and seek His direction and He will answer. His answers will be crystal clear. Doubts will diminish in your mind about the choice that God wants you to make and about the race that you are supposed to run.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Me, God and My Tennis Shoesby Gwendolyne walter Copyright © 2012 by Gwendolyne Walter. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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