Traced with purpose

“if you’re gifted don’t touch it, it’s not yours. God did that for His glory and you’ll make yourself a blasphemer. I don’t care what it is, if you’re good at it, you’re excelling at it, you’ll praise His glorious grace because HE did that work in you. The pattern of this world is to fail to acknowledge that all that is good and right has been offered and is sustained by God.” – Matt Chandler

No matter how good we ever get at something in life we can never look down on others who aren’t as good at it because the truth is our talent is a gift from God regardless how hard we work to develop our talent it is still a gift from God. It’s like your kid bragging about the huge birthday gift he bought you when he used your money to buy it. We have nothing to brag about no matter how far we excel in life except the goodness and mercy of God.

Life changes when we really realize where we stand as son’s and daughters of God and that everything we have including our salvation is nothing to do with what we did to earn it but instead a beautiful gift that we do not deserve.

How does this affect my life in a practical way? If I felt I earned or deserve anything I would be angry at God for allowing me to have masses of tumors. But when I get the fact that I don’t deserve anything and everything I do have is a gift from God – I’m grateful for the health I do have! Even if all I have is breath – it’s still a gift I don’t deserve!

Drinking choco out of this cup with loads of memories of what I use to be able to do. Flew a friend, dad and my bro from southern tip of CA to this island in a Cessna 182. It is literally an airport in the sky. There’s a 1700 foot drop off at each end of the runway making it a carrier landing. It’s beautiful-ill post photos of it later today.

Sometimes the hardest thing with my medical condition is looking back at things I use to be able to do, esp being diagnosed in the middle of my pilot training, but sometimes I have to reframe things and thank God for allowing me to live my dream for a minute while others with my same diagnosis never had that chance. And then I look back over the past 5 years since I was diagnosed and the moments God has allowed me to experience, the things I see now that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, the perspectives it has given me, experiencing the power of amazing friends’ prayers, tasting death and realizing how purpose filled this life is, experiencing total deafness and then it was restored. All the things can seem like curses but they are actually blessings in disguise.

this has taught me the value of the “gifts” of life, health, family & friends that God has gifted to us that none of us deserve! Cherish those gifts! Don’t take them for granted! And when they get taken away, God may just being replacing them with a greater Gift!

So I think about my past and the many awesome moments I was able to experience and it’s hard to look forward and be excited sometimes – but God has many exciting things for me to experience in the future that are way better than my dream of being a pilot or any other dream I had!

Sometimes your greatest disappointments are just blessings in disguise.
ciii