Reflect-son

I don’t know about you Gems but living my life to reflect God’s son is a constant battle. I like most of you have struggled with the age old question “Lord what is your will for my life today?”

The Lord gave me a new answer when I asked the question AGAIN this past weekend.
He started by asking me what my reflection looked like. He then told me “my will is that you reflect me in whatever you do.”
Colossians 3:  ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Huh? Whatever I do…. Did you just “whatever” me?

I realized that in each new thing I do my reflection isn't always the same.  Sometimes when I begin a new adventure I can’t see Jesus in me to clearly. You know what I mean?

But why don’t I see Him clearly? Is it because I’m being self-centered? Am I looking through the eyes of doubt? Am I basing my results on my promises to God instead of God’s promises to me?

After seeing the verse in Colossians it appeared to me God might be more interested in the how I do than the what I do.
Is this what your saying God?  This thinking seemed to bring more clarity to my reflection?

I’ll give you my latest example:
My car was falling apart and needed a lot of work.  After getting a quote I realized I would be paying way more to fix the the car than it was worth. This of course raised the question should I get a newer car? I have not had a car payment or any monthly payments in years and the thought of having one was not appealing to me at all. 
I started praying about the car situation and felt like the Holy Spirit said to lease a car. He also sent my friend Cynthia to see me who had just leased a car. She said she felt like God told her to tell me to lease a car.
Mind you I had not told anyone what I was praying about.

I reminded the Holy Spirit that leasing still required a payment,

 as if He needed that information.

You would have thought at this point things were pretty clear right? But nooooo! I asked my Spiritual Guru Jessica, my 18 year old daughter what she thought, her response “why are you still praying about something God already said yes too?”

After a couple more days of praying I finally met with my friend Evelyn’s husband Rob who works at a car dealership to talk about my options. I decided I would put out a fleece for confirmation. If I got approved for the loan with a part time job income it was definitely God saying yes. 
Really spiritual I know.

The night before our meeting I prayed AGAIN to God for clarity and this is what He said “Gena you can have the car and I will provide IF you can accept my provision without bringing it up over and over each month when the payment is due. If you can’t, then don’t get the car.”
Being the level headed Christian I am, I said back to the Lord what I thought He said to me. I decided to use part of Colossians just to be on the safe side. I just wanted to be clear, I learned this in a communication class :)

"So what you’re saying is if I’m doing whatever I’m doing in the name of the Lord, in this case leasing a car, then I would automatically be doing your will so it’s your will for me to get a car."

Are you confused? Welcome to my world….

Gems this may shock you but I don’t think God is too concerned with what car I was going to drive.

What He was concerned with was that I was going to believe that He said He would provide.
This may not have been a great example but it’s what I was dealing with.
The bottom line is as time went on I started reflecting more and more on what God was saying to me.
I was like the picture of this lake. You only see part of the sky in the reflection because clouds covered the rest.  Sometimes things look cloudy to us when we are asking God questions and we're not sure of the answer because of our own doubts about God's answer.

The thing is Gems maybe we keep asking God over and over for something He has already answered yes to. Maybe we are cloudy because of our doubt to His word or in my case  I didn't think I deserved what He wanted to bless me with. 

The truth is if we are walking our whatever in the guidelines of God's word than maybe we don't have to ask at all. He will give us our desires before we even bring them up. He will do this because His desires become our desires and that's the only way you can do things in the name of Jesus.

In other words just do whatever it is your gonna do the way Jesus would!

What questions are you asking the Lord right now? Maybe like me you are focusing on the what instead of the how. Maybe the Holy Spirit is asking you to focus your “whatever” in the name of the Lord and give thanks to God that in all things we have the ability to be a reflection of His son Jesus.