When Great Expectations fail...

'I saw a picture for you just now,' Helen said to me Thursday night as we were finishing up The Deck.

'Your golden cow was upside down with its legs in the air and it was dying.'

My heart was encouraged: 'Oh God....Let it be so, let it be so.'

Any gold calves in you? Things you still hold that stand opposed to ruthless trust in God?

They can be well camouflaged: some are fashioned from 'great expectations' of how something should/would/could be. Some are the ways we function or think we should function. Some are hopes that never came into place. Any of these can grow to become the focal point of our thoughts, energy, and life: a gold calf.

God's been showing me that my golden cow (yeah....bigger than a calf,) is HOW I want my role in the advance of Kingdom to go. Over the decades I have flung my passion and focus into various companies, ventures, teams, ideas and relationships that I thought were how God was going to bring it about.

But each time, that cow is crushed into dust and cast on the water.

I confused a temporary function or assignment with the core of my identity.

At The Deck this week about all I could bring was my brokenness. Not easy. I cannot control outcomes but I can, at least, be candid in the process. My personal commitment that we embrace all the truth as well as all the grace.

I know that this isn't just about me - That there's a whole lot of shaking going on and a whole lot of sifting for a whole lot of God's people.