Bringing the Future into Now

Honestly, for a while I have not enjoyed my job. It wasn't the worst I've had, nor was it a bad place to work, but is actually a great place to work. However, I know I'm supposed to be headed towards something else ultimately and only here for this season. But the question I was getting is 'Why do I feel so discontent and can't wait to get off of work if I know God has me here?  Surely I don't have the worst job in the world.  Brother Lawrence, who is one of the most historical figures in the church never graduated beyond being a dishwasher but was one of the most sought-after in his day for wisdom and revelation just because of how he learned to dwell in the presence of the Lord all day long and not while he just prayed but while he was For the past few days instead of going about my normal mornings with the Lord in a routine, I decided to go after this lack of content I've had with my job for the past few months. In my time with Him, I visualized myself doing a better job, being more patient with the clients I work with, and enjoying what I do there.  I began to ask the Lord for grace over where I sit and for the people that sit around me with His presence being there and the day I began to do that, I started experiencing incredible job satisfaction all of a sudden and to the point of loving my job. The day went by so fast and I wasn't in a hurry to get home. I was actually having fun at my job. This is apart f keeping "watch" over the place you work and not just trying to focus on the negative and the devil and whatever is trying to keep you from your "season" in God. 

Whats key is going "into the future" with the Lord and making that a reality by faith. Mark 11:24, "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and you shall have it." Incredible how God tells you to believe that you have something before you actually have it and by this you bring the future into now. This works on all levels whether turning your job into a joy, starting a business, healing the sick, or evanglizing. Imagination leads to reality and when we imagine with the Holy Spirit, heaven manifests into the earth!

Control vs. Freedom

Recently I've been in a book called "Basic Economics" by a well-known and sought after economist named Thomas Sowell. When I started this book I had the motive to become more educated on modern economics since the economy both nationally and globally is such an upfront topic in our times and what happens during those times affects us for generations to come.   About halfway through the book, truths leaped out that I found exist at every level of relationships and structures whether family, business, or government.  The same principles that apply at the smallest level exist at the larger ones in how control and freedom affect the livelihood of the relationship or structure.   I use a government/political structure because that is where I discovered the principles that apply and it greatly illustrates what I'm trying to communicate.  This is not intended to promote a political movement over another but to communicate a point that exists in life in general.  

A Brief History of Socialism
Fortunately endless hours of in-depth research isn't required to understand what works and what doesn't work with economic systems and political structures.  While the intent is to correct injustice between social classes and rid poverty by attempting to regulate the distribution of wealth actually created the opposite.  The history of modern socialism was born out of an overreaction to the premature and early stages of the industrial age where families were taken advantage of for hard labor and low pay where children were forced to labor to make ends meet.  All the while the upper class were rolling in the dough with little regulation.  Then Frederick Engels and Karl Marx take notice but respond in an overreaction to the evils of extreme capitalism with the infant stages of the industrial revolution.  But the fruit of their philosophy created something far worse as seen in years to come with the evils of the Soviet Union and China and to a degree Fascist movements with Hitler.  Whatever the expression, the end is oppression.  The overreaction to an extreme only leads to another extreme that is worst than the first.  (I promise I'm not intending to rhyme).   Nations that shifted to less government control over the economy and people would prosper. But when they digressed back to more government control, that same nation would begin to experience economic decline again thus raising poverty, oppression, etc. 

How Does This Apply?

The truth that applies is control has the same effects whether it applies to individuals, music groups, marriages, businesses, or nations. When someone is controlling someone else through emotional pressure even if the intentions are to help the person, the person being controlled does not prosper in almost every aspect of their life whether mentally, emotionally, or creatively. Marriages are miserable when a spouse controls the other. Nations that have governments that control the people do not prosper. People that control others always put that person or persons in a place to submit out of fear leading to insecurity, confusion, and depression.

Freedom always gives freedom. There is room to prosper whether emotional, creatively, financially, etc. Control never works even when we're trying to help someone to make right decisions and get out of a mess. If you have to nag someone and continually put emotional pressure on someone to do something, its always destructive even if you get compliance. Almost everyone has done it on some level and probably had it done to them.  It stinks.  Love is the opposite of control and always sets people free because it gives them the freedom to be...free.