Can you feel it? It’s in the air!
That crazy unsettled feeling after something is over, and before something else happens.

It may be the Madness of Basketball? The season that overlaps every other season.
Football is over, and baseball has not yet begun, yet we are inundated with more basketball games than we have time to watch! Bets are being made on teams you hope will do well and produce a victory!
There are 64 college teams in the beginning with their eyes on the prize in what has been termed “The Big Dance.” They are all fighting to be the FINAL TWO to play each other and become the FINAL ONE, the Victor who will claim the ultimate prize and be crowned the number one college basketball team of the year! CRAZY MADNESS isn’t it?

Or, maybe it’s that unsettled feeling between Winter and Spring? You can feel the weather outside turning from cold, to warm, and then back to cold again! You put your umbrella and rain coat in the closet for the season, to only turn around and take them back out again. Sweatshirt or T-shirt, what should you wear today? You want to put your winter clothes in your closet away and replace them with your colorful, bright spring wardrobe, but the minute you do, it’s cold outside again!

What about ‘Spring cleaning?’ You have put away your winter decor, the dust has settled nicely on all of your shelves, and you long to push it all aside and clean it off for Spring. But, alas, as soon as you do it’s time to turn that heater back on and all of the dust is blown around and resettles on those clean, spotless shelves.

Maybe what you are reading today is just me, talking to myself. I have been in a season of unsettledness, “MADNESS” if you will. I have been running hard toward something that I am sure of, but cannot see.

Thinking about the things of heaven and eternity, the things that will last forever is the goal. Not about the things of earth which rot, decay, spoil, distract and discourage. This is the only way to live victoriously through this life of MADNESS that we are called to but cannot see the end of!

“Think about the things of Heaven, not the things of earth.” Colossians 3:2

I have been affirmed of God’s clear call on my life to move to Northern California with my husband and begin a new ministry as Senior Pastor’s wife. We have taken all of the proper steps toward that call, packed our house up in Southern California, and moved it all to Northern California. We put our So Cal house on the market, said good-bye to our ministry of thirty years, and all of our dear friends and family, including our daughter, son-in-law, and precious grand babies! Then we PRAYED LIKE CRAZY, and we made the move! We stepped out in the direction God was calling us to. A new church, a new group of people, a new ministry, a new part of the state, a new neighborhood, a new grocery store, a new hair stylist etc, etc, etc…You name it, it was NEW! I found myself alone and confronted with everything new everyday!

Now, if you think that is the MADNESS I am sharing about, you are wrong! The madness came in the trial we have faced since we moved and are still facing. Our house in So Cal has now been on the market for four months, we have been in and out of escrow twice, and are now in it again for the third time! Everyone told us our house would sell quickly, our neighborhood moves fast! No rhyme nor reason, just fact, it hasn’t sold. The MADNESS has been that the house we found in Nor Cal and moved in to has been impossible to close due to the fact that our escrow has fallen through twice!

MADNESS sets in and what do we do? The world tells us that MADNESS is running hard in a direction you do NOT know the destination, outcome or end of! If that were the truth, then I have been running in MADNESS for four months!

The Truth, the Truth with a capital T, the only Truth that lasts for eternity, is ‘The Only Direction I need to be running toward is God!’

As long as I am running toward Him, staying in His Word Daily, Praying and Speaking and Listening to Him Daily, then the MADNESS around me will become peace and comfort as He transforms my MADNESS into Victory!

“Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So, I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”
I Corinthians 9:24-27

I’M IN IT TO WIN IT! ARE YOU? I do not want to succumb to the MADNESS around me! I do not want it to cause me to doubt the One I am following! I do not want my circumstance to distract me from the end goal. I want to “RUN TO WIN” just like Paul says in verse 24. I want to “RUN WITH PURPOSE IN EVERY STEP,” verse 26, even when I cannot see the end!
For it is not MADNESS when you are running toward God, toward the prize that will never fade or tarnish.

TRUTH BOMB

Keeping your eyes fixed on heavenly things is the only way to navigate the MADNESS!

Setting our minds on the things of heaven, and not the things of this earth, even when the MADNESS is all around us, is the only True way to navigate this MADNESS we call life.

I’m in it to win it, are you?
Let’s meet back here next week as we take a further look at the MADNESS surrounding us and how we can discipline ourselves through it.

Love, prayers, strength and hope to you all,

Speak Truth Love