Take Action

"Take Action" was the main idea in a sermon I wrote for the Junior High Group at Olive Branch Community Church a couple of years ago. The intended purpose of that sermon was to motivate the Youth to take action in multiple aspects of their walk with God.

I enjoy pondering over my old sermons as it blows me away how God used me to write them but it also gives me a chance to see if I actually lived what I preached. Which I must admit does not happen as much as I would like.

As this sermon randomly popped in my head it got me thinking about the goals and dreams that everyone has, and I thought about how EVERYONE has some form of a dream or goal. This lead me to a question... followed by another question because it is all about me as I am a big deal.

How many people actually achieve those goals and experience those dreams?

And since it is all about me the second question...

Have I achieved my goals and experienced my dreams?

Now these were reflective questions, not "hey random person at work let me ask you some things." I asked myself "have I achieved my goals and dreams?" So to answer that let's go back in time to when I was in high school and college (and the most popular kid ever). I did not have high aspirations as proven by what my goal was at the time. My goal was seriously nothing more than get a pansy (my verbiage) office job and work my way up to be able to support myself and a family. Yup. That was it... and guess what? I totally did that.

I started as a part time Data Entry Associate at Olivet International making $10 an hour. BIG BUCKS. Eventually I moved around the company a bit and ended up full time and salaried essentially running the HR and Payroll side of the company. After about three years at Olivet I took a new job at Synergy Human Capital Management where I learned even more about payroll and made more money. Dream. Achieved. Yay.

So why was I not happy?

Instead of answering that question I distracted myself. I tried to fill every single minute of every single day with something to distract me. That entailed video games, having to finish that TV series, having to stay up to date on my favorite websites, saying yes to anything and everything that was asked of me, over burdening myself with Church ministries... and many other things.

Instead of taking action and trying to figure out what the real issue was I just distracted myself, or as I see in many other people I became complacent and decided to just roll with the punches like a graceful manatee (I like similes that make little sense).

After this went on for a while one day I decided  that I was going to do something about it. I told myself it is time to take action and take care of this issue. It was go time, I was going to own it and be happy and everything would be awesome.

This new passion was misplaced in many things and they all crashed and burned. That is because I was not taking the right action. I was just jumping at every opportunity presented to me that offered some form of change. What I needed was to want a definitive thing. I had to take a break from my created distractions and just talk to my wife about what we want. It essentially broke down to God and each other. Then once we have established a way to do that, keep on going, keep on taking action, do not be complacent.

It was decided, and I decided to be confident in myself but more importantly my God.

If I want something, I am going to get it no matter what, and the only thing that is going to stop me is if God doesn't want that to happen, which I am pretty sure He did with my many attempts to take action without purpose. But now that we had our goal nothing was going to stop me from my quest out of complacency which eventually lead me to where I am today in beautiful Indiana which only happened because God made it happen.

Here be the bullets:

• A friend of mine moved out east prior and told me about a job
• I got that job (God provided)
• I told my job at Synergy I was quitting
• Ended up being able to work part time from home for Synergy (God provided)
• I found a good apartment online (God provided)
• I broke my lease for my California apartment (I miss you money... but God still provided)
• My family and friends helped me get rid of everything we could and pack everything else (God provided)
• My family drove with me and my wife 37 hours straight (I do not recommend this) to Indiana (God provided)
• I started the new job
• I made ZERO money at the new job but was able to spend more time with my wife (God still provided)
• Found a good church (God provided)
• I was offered a great job as a Benefits Analyst for Ascension Health at their Ministry Service Center in Indianapolis (God provided)
• I am actually happy (God is providing)

After trying my hardest to make something happened and God saying NOPE, He finally set us on an adventure and I have never been happier. This adventure has lead me to love my wife more, appreciate God's amazing grace more, and to motivate me to never stop TAKING ACTION. Next will be getting involved with our Church and seeing how God wants to use us for His glory.

All it took was to slow down... talk to my wife... and more importantly to go to God and say your will be done. I am done being complacent and I am done trying and failing to lead myself.

The point I am trying to make in all this is that we can't be complacent, and that applies to everything in our lives.

The moment we become complacent is the moment we give up on going further.

That most definitely cannot be how our walk with God should go, we should always be striving to be closer to Him, and complacent should not be how we define that walk or our lives. I have seen so many people unhappy with their lives and they will not do anything about it, and that included me. This insight I am sharing with you is something my wife has been telling me for years (hey wife I love you), which leads me to believe there is someone in your life that has done the same and you have ignored it. Could be a spouse, friend, and probably has been God.

My challenges to anyone that reads this (which includes my hypocritical self):

1. Ask yourself, how is my prayer life? How is my time in the Bible and how does my life reflect God? Evaluate that and strive to improve it because without that foundation we lose our purpose in life which is the glorification of God and the sharing of salvation given by the death of Christ with the world.
2. Evaluate your own life. Find what you are not happy with and change it. TAKE ACTION. If you hate your job then find something else you like or see what you can do to improve your work. Do not let money be the reason to suffer. If you are unhappy with your spouse... DON'T change your spouse or shut them out, FIX THE RELATIONSHIP. If you do not feel like you are contributing enough to our world then go out and volunteer where it is needed or donate what abundance God has given you. If you want to be happy then I recommend doing what I did, make time away from everything else and just talk with your family and friends but more importantly God about what needs to be done.

No excuses, if you want something then go and try for it. Do not let complacency shackle you to the meaningless. You are God's creation, that alone gives you purpose, a purpose wasted with complacency.

I do want to toss a disclaimer out there and urge anyone that reads this that is thinking of taking action... that you need to be prepared for God to say no, but that just means you need to re focus. That is what I had to do, it sucked at first but here I am in beautiful Indiana watching Hockey with my wife working at a job I actually enjoy. I couldn't have planned this any better. God will lead you, but you need to take action in that walk, and be willing to accept a no and redirection from Him.

My name is Matt, and when I see people I see a God given potential to take action and change the world... and their own lives for the better.

Mistakes & Grace

If you were to ask someone how have they become so successful (because people totally do that) chances are they would say a lot of hard work.

I agree with that to an extent. Yes hard work is required to be successful at really anything, rarely do people have the job, family, talent, every single poster of One Direction without hard work. But one thing is missing from that....

MISTAKES!

No one gets anywhere in life without making some mistakes along the way, but that is good!

Allow me (like I need your permission) to share an example of my life:

The first position I held with my job at Olivet International was a part time Data Entry Associate in accounting. This is where I first learned of the magical application that you must know to do business. The all powerful Microsoft Excel. I made a nice chunk of mistakes but due to the kindness of my co workers I was able to learn from these mistakes.

I eventually transfered to the HR department as the woman that was preggers on maternity leave who's job I was filling returned. I was responsible for filing HR/Legal documents by certain categories that made no sense to me. Thanks to the understanding of my boss I was able to pick it up after some mistakes.

Eventually they had me do payroll (which meant I know how much people make and can be angry about it.... but shouldn't). This was a huge learning curve filled with...MISTAKES, but thanks again to the understanding of my boss we were able to work past it until I became more efficient at payroll than him.

This has now lead to me working for Synergy Group where I now add other companies to our payroll software and help them run payroll. I did not get this job because of my talent and knowledge, I got this job because of the mistakes I made and learned from. Mistakes that did not stop my learning or end my employment, mistakes that were not punished due to grace.

The two points I want to make with this story:

1. When you are teaching someone, even if it is a job you are paying them for, you have to allow for some mistakes. I am not saying let all of them slide without some conversation about it, but use them to help grow this person.
2. Realize how much of your own success has come form your mistakes and the grace that others showed to you to help you grow from them.

This now leads to my final point(SURPRISE! THIRD POINT!)

We fail every single day at this life that God has granted to us. 

It all started with Adam and Eve but we are the ones that continue to make bad decisions so we have no right to blame them as I am confident we would eventually have made the same mistake. 

We waste so much time in this life meant to bring glory to God and make His name known by making mistakes, and instead of letting us face our own fate that we have chosen  He sent His Son to die a real death on a real cross as the ultimate sacrifice, taking our punishment that we deserve. The ultimate form of grace for our mistakes.

Your whole life is built on mistakes and grace from others but how often do you realize that we are only here and able to live forever because of God's grace. We do not have anything today by our hard work, it is by grace.

What are you going to do with this gift of grace? I pray that it is something amazing for God's Kingdom.

My name is Matthew Worsham, and when I see people I also see God's grace. 

The (Americanized) American Dream...

What better way to break into this new(not really) and exciting(for all of you) world of blogging than with a rant...

I am not a fan of the American Dream.

I should clarify what it is I mean by the American Dream, or I should say, what it has become. Allow me to break it down for you in a non rapper way.

The (Americanized) American Dream:

• Be born (thank your parents)
• Go to school
• Go to more school
• Go into debt
• Find a job
• Find a spouse
• Buy a house
• Have kids
• Send the kids to school
• Retire to Florida
• Die

That is what the American Dream has become in this day and age. It is more of a list of to do's than a dream... dreams are to be something grand, something epic, something with a Velociraptor (just me?), but it has instead become a to do list.

Why has the American Dream become nothing but a to do list? My highly educated (heh) theory is that we are told this is what must be done. You are not a successful person unless the above criteria is checked off. It is what every modern family portrayed in the media is written to pursue, it is probably what your parents wanted to do, but the biggest reason is because we care too much about what people think about us. Sorry bros, that be dumb. 

My biggest problem with The (Americanized) American Dream, is that there is no room for purpose. This plan takes priority in every single facet of life, we get an education that bores us, we get a job that is bearable enough to keep on going to keep checking off that to do list, and we do not allow ourselves the chance to do something amazing. 

Sometimes we need to delay or even change our dreams to truly live.

One thing that I have been thinking about is how we were created in God's image... and the first thought we have on that is probably something like "oh, that means we look like Him or something right?" To me, I think it means we have UNLIMITED potential to do amazing thing's for God's Kingdom. We are made in His image... what an honor that is, what a gift that is... We all have gifts that have been given to us to do some amazing things... but then we don't do anything... and I feel one of the biggest reasons we are actually not pusuing God... is because we are too busy pursuing The (Americanized) American Dream.

So when I mentioned there is no room for purpose, I mean to say there is no room for God. We Americans need our safety bubble filled with money, the white picket fence, and having successful offspring. But the thing about bubbles, is they are going to pop. The thing about God, is that He will catch you, even if you die. No matter how awesome that new car is, it is going to hurt when you fall on it (unless it was made with nerf... get on that scientists).

Our dreams become useless wastes of time when it is not focused on God, and I do not mean focused twice a week when at Church, when we pray super quick to nom down (that means eat), I mean every day that ends with a Y (and Matt will never make that joke again). 

Without God guiding us to our dreams, we are just wandering around looking for justification to verify our wants and eventually that wandering is going to lead you off a cliff into oblivion. We are looking for our purpose.... when God already gave us one.

Now here is the part where Matt (psst... i'm Matt) makes you feel better for wanting those things I listed above... I do not think there is anything wrong with wanting those things. Most of you I feel will be called to follow that dream and be blessed with abundance, but that means you have to do something with that abundance. I actually do hope that everyone that reads this is blessed with wealth and comfort. But I pray that you do something with it other than fill your bubble with more fleeting things. If God has blessed you with something, it means you are to use it and this applies to talents as well as money.

The thing about this life that God gave to you is that you also have a purpose, His purpose for you. So this means you have to be willing to delay or even give up (GASP) on those things you want. I hope you all can achieve your dreams, but I pray that God is the at the front of your life guiding you there.

(end rant)