Chasing Dreams: Faith Without Work

^{James 2:26} Just as the body is dead without breath,^[d] so also faith is dead without good works.

So Saturday night I had a few transparent moments on Twitter. A little bit of background, I was on the net and came across a website owned by a friend of mine that I went to college with back in 2001. He owns his own event planning business, does modeling, etc. He had a picture of himself and his bio on the About Me page and all I could do was be jealous of his success.

This jealousy propelled me into a depressing, self-loathing, God blaming tirade that lasted until Sunday morning. The basic premise of which was, the church has made us lazy by dangling the purpose and destiny carrot in front of us, but rarely are we seeing results. If i'm busy dreaming and believing, I'm not working, and therefore not getting the things I'm supposedly destined to achieve. Man how I was wrong.

It's amazing how a simple word from the Lord can change your whole perspective. Sunday morning Pastor Mike Todd (WHO WE BE? So F.L.Y) preached a simple message, but one that shattered my whole world. Faith without works is dead.

Simple Right? See the thing is, in my heart, I had challenged God that night. Basically what is the point of me living this life if success is only a mirage in a desert of trials? But like Job when he questioned the Lord, God brought the answer straight from His word, to my level. How dare I question Him and his method, when I had put NO WORK to my faith? I claim that all these years I been believing God to take me places, but if I really believed I'd have been preparing myself to get there right? It's not God's fault that I've been twiddling my thumbs while believing for the miraculous to fall out of the sky. It's mine. SO the things I want, I should pursue. God chasers can indeed be Dream chasers. In fact, that's the way it's supposed to be.

So no more wistful dreaming. TIme to put the plow to work. Leggo.