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If only God included a blueprint design for our lives when we were born so the design could be meticulously followed. One of the greatest concerns for Christ followers and spiritual leaders is being faithful to the will of God for our lives, but it can seem so nebulous. God has hardwired a blueprint into your life. It is revealed though listening to his heartbeat, observing the passions emerging within us, paying attention to the paths of our lives, and established through our actions, habits and practices.
In this episode, and in the notes that follow, we discuss the blueprint God has provided us that we may faithfully follow his design for our lives.
Continue reading for the article and episode notes.
A Blueprint for God’s Will for Your Life
Technically, a blueprint is a photographic copy of a mechanical or architectural drawing that prints white lines on a blue background. I don’t think blueprints are blue any longer because copying is far more sophisticated than it used to be, but the term stuck and has become synonymous with a set of detailed and precise plans.
We often think of the strategic plans for our lives, written or not, as a blueprint. The “blueprint” for our lives is a detailed schematic of who we are and how we are wired, it is a game plan or a design for what will be.
We’ve identified several indicators of the design blueprint for our lives. As we’ve worked through each of them, we’ve further discovered they fit into four categories, and those four categories align with the framework for our lives: Presence, Passion, Path, and Practice.
Why does this matter? Every discerning and insightful person, especially spiritual leaders, are concerned with not only where they are, but also where they are going. We desire to accurately and excellently fulfill the purposes of our lives according to God’s plan. It is the quintessential question of, “What is God’s will and plan for my life?”
Wouldn’t it be nice if at some point on our journey God simply handed us a blueprint to be meticulously followed in the design and movement of our lives? It’s not that simple, but we believe, to a great degree, he has provided a blueprint and a coordinated road map for us to follow.
God has gifted us with a life blueprint in four ways. He is revealing the blueprint for our lives n his Presence, through our passions, in our emerging paths, and according to our life practices.
First, God reveals his blueprint for our lives in his presence. [7:02]
A God-vision comes from the heart of God. We say a “God” vision because we want to pursue what God sees and what he shows us. Time spent listening to the heartbeat of God reveals his thoughts and intentions for his Kingdom and for our lives.
I am a voracious journaled. Writing what I feel God to be saying has massively directed the course of my life. It’s not only what we hear in the heartbeat of God, but it’s also the things that emerge in our own spirits that over time, we write and reflect upon that guide our lives. My journal has, in so many ways, become a blueprint for my life. The proximity and presence of God is the source of my journal insights.
What we hear and see in the presence of God is, most obviously, a blueprint for our lives.
Second, God reveals his blueprint for our lives through our passions. [8:45]
Arising from our presence with God and his presence with us, our passions are stirred. We worry so much about human passions and being led off of God’s path and onto the path of our emotions, but I firmly believe God works through our emotions. When we sincerely submit ourselves to God, he begins to reveal himself through our sanctified emotions.
The things I care about, my emotions of holy discontent, the things I passionately want to do with my life, those are a blueprint to give me guidance and direction into the will of God. It seems so simple to simply ask the question, “Having submitted my life and my ways to God, what do I want to do?”
When you care about something, have the confidence in your relationship with Christ to allow yourself to believe that God promoted that concern within you. What are you most passionate about?
What makes you angry? What is the wrong in the world you passionately feel must be fixed? As the lead pastor of a church, one Sunday morning following the service, a man approached me and asked me, “What do you intend to do about the millions of babies killed through abortion every year?” For a second or two I was stunned, and then the answer sovereignty jumped into my mind. I turned the question to him, “You are the one to whom God has given the passion, what will you do?”
I cannot right every wrong in the world. I cannot give myself to every worthy cause. We could sit here and list hundreds of causes right now, and neither of us could take all of them on. Seeing a worthy cause is not enough. Seeing a cause and being sovereignly moved to the core—that’s your blueprint.
What are you afraid of? Fear is an emotion and it is an indicator. There is paralyzing and debilitating fear, and then there is a healthy fear that raises questions and concerns. Emdo not run from our fears we face them. If there is something you are afraid of it might be a barrier to the very thing you are supposed to do. Fear is a mechanism warning us about moving forward or taking risks. Examine the things you are afraid of, because fear is intermingled with passion, is resident in risk, and it is very often resident in the risk we are to take.
Our passions are a blueprint for our lives.
Third, God reveals his blueprint for our lives through our paths. [17:05]
Abide in the presence of God, a passion will arise, and a path will emerge. Our path is our past, our present, and our future. What paths have you walked in the past? What is your story? What’s your redemptive history? What has God already done on your journey? Where we’ve been is an indicator of where we are going.
It’s not only our past path, but it is our emerging path that lays out the blueprint for our “right now” and our future. Our path is our divine strategic plan for forward movement.
Where are you walking right now, what’s happening in your life right now that indicates where you need to go? How has your past prepared you for the future? What are the things you’ve experienced and learned? What do you know how to do? What did you love to do when you were a kid?
What is God doing in your life right now? You can be assured God is preparing you for right now and for tomorrow. The things God is doing in your life today are part of your blueprint. Observe the hand of God, pay attention to the every day events of your life. Pay attention to your path, because your path has a beginning and an end and it is taking you somewhere.
Our path is a blueprint for our lives.
Fourth, God establishes his blueprint for our lives through our life practices. [19:43]
Connected closely to our path, our life practices, actions, and habits reveal the blueprint for our lives. Abide in the presence of God, a passion will arise, a plan will emerge, and a Practice will result.
What you do daily, the actions you take, the habits you establish, these will take you where you are going whether you want to go there or not. We are familiar with the adage that I can only attribute to Samuel Smiles, because that is what the internet returned:
“Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”
—Samuel Smiles
The first three blueprint resources are formative, presence, passion, and path, the fourth, practice is more reactive. The things you practice are the living out of your blueprint, but they are also shaping the future. You can either make the blueprint and following it with your actions, or you can disregard the blueprint and draw it as you go.
Design is so important. Never build a house or a building without a blueprint designed by an architect. I have seen horrendous buildings sketched out in a notebook and built and when drawn by an amateur, they are never as functional in reality as they are on the back of a napkin.
So it is is with our lives, If you simply design your life as you go, according to the whim of each day, you risk living an ineffectual and unexamined life.
Abide in the presence of God and listen to his heartbeat, pay attention and his pattern and you will begin to see the blueprint for your life. Embrace your sanctified passions and you will see God’s blueprint revealed in them. Observe your path, where you’ve been and what is emerging right now and you will see a blueprint. Mind your habits, actions, and practices because they will determine whether or not your blueprint becomes reality.
Calibration Tools… Calibrating our lives and lifting those we love and lead. [26:22]
Knowing the will of God for our lives, and knowing how we should approach our future is one of our biggest concerns, both for our lives and for those we love and lead. How do we develop the blueprint for our lives and embrace it? Take some time to consider the following questions and reflect on God’s blueprint for your life.
- Over the past several months, what themes have emerged in your prayer time and as you’ve listened to the heartbeat of God? Review your journal and look for emerging themes, look for things revealed, look for the things you are seeing in the presence of God. What is God showing you in your time spent with him?
- What are you afraid of? What makes you angry? What pumps you up? What are your sanctified emotions telling you? What are you passionate about and how do those passions (or how should those passions) merge and connect with your life?
- What does your past tell you about your future? Where are you right now and what opportunities and adventures are presenting themselves? What is God doing in your life and what could that tell you about your blueprint? What strategic plans are you working on and how do they fit into where you are going?
- What destiny are you crafting through your current actions, habits, and practices? If you keep doing what you are doing where will you be next year, 5 years from now, 20 years from now? What actions, practices, and habits must you adjust or change?
Finally…
Life is a journey. It emerges, it shifts, and it takes us to both challenging places and wonderful places. A blueprint is a plan that defines the finished product, a blueprint is what the building is supposed to look like. Blueprints can be revised, changed, and adjusted as things change, It is a cohesive and excellent design giving us a pattern for God’s design for our lives.
Our blueprint for living is revealed in the presence of God, in our arising passions, through our emerging paths, and through the actions, practices, and habits we establish.
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