Chazown!!!

 

Chazown class was incredible.

I can only dream at this point that every member of our church, every member of our community would find God's vision for their lives. The class is centered around the word Chazown (Kha-Zone), a Hebrew word meaning vision. For "Where there is no vision, the people perish."- Proverbs 29:18

Chazown class is centered on finding a sentence that defines you, a sentence that creates a vision for your life by looking at how your past experiences, your core values and your spiritual gifts overlap. Real stuff. Candid stuff. Powerful stuff.

The Chazown Journey

There is pain, triumph, sadness, glory, weak moments and defining moments when we look at our past experiences. As believers, we should take all of these things as part of God's vision for our lives. If you truly believe that God only gives you what you can handle, then all of it plays a part in defining who you are at this moment.

Combine deep thought and prayer about these instances in your past with prayerfully seeking to find the spiritual gifts you've been given, figure out what your core values are and you'll find something powerful, I guarantee it.

As with anything, you'll get out of it exactly what you put in to it. If you give this time to God, seek His guidance with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, you're going to find what you're looking for. God tells us it's true and I gave it my all in listening and learning throughout the class.

Finding my Chazown

As I said before, I went in to this with an open heart, even if I already thought that God had revealed His vision for me and that I am trying to live it.

I made my timeline, wrote down every event I could point to in my past that I felt significant one way or another. Craig, the creator of the class and the man in the video led sessions will tell you to write anything that comes in to your mind about your past as it's come to your mind for a reason and may have significance if you pray and ask God for answers. So I did, there were things sharper than knives in there, things I sometimes wish I could forget. There were also things in there that I hadn't thought about in years that were absolutely incredible moments that I never would have thought significant if not for this class. All in all, the timeline was enlightening, I thought some really great things came from my past experiences, even from dreadful events.

The biggest being my inherent need to be obedient to God's calling in my life. One thing stuck with me, he implored us to think about the things that bring pure joy, unfiltered joy, but also think about the things that make us red hot with anger when we think about them as this may point to something far more significant. After all, some of the best lessons on earth come from our hardship and our mistakes.

For me, I felt incredibly angry when I looked back to the time before I became a follower of Christ. I saw the signs he'd thrown right in front of my face that I never listened to. I thought to myself, what if I'd started listening to Him then? What if I started listening to Him when that happened in my life? Maybe, just maybe I wouldn't have to overcome so many hurdles. I wouldn't have to overcome such a sinful life that this culture created within me, my life could have been filled with joy rather than chaos, could have been filled with many more meaningful relationships rather than relationships that I would need to distance myself from in order to have a more meaningful relationship with God and with my family. The need to be obedient to God is in me, it's one of the strongest feelings I've ever felt. There were more things to take from my past experiences, but this clearly stuck out.

From there, you figure out your spiritual gifts. The strongest gifts I've received are encouragement, faith, writing and leadership, "imagine that" I thought to myself. These are things I feel compelled to do yet fight them sometimes. It's the way the Christian life works for me, the "easy way" is rarely the way that I feel God is pulling me. This exercise was no different. Moving on...

Finally, we moved to figuring out our core values. Mine came down to obedience, integrity, enthusiasm, joy, family, teamwork and community in no particular order. 

How does it all fit?

Making it all fit takes prayer, discussion, quiet time with your thoughts as well as a yearning to find God's vision for your life. Craig asks you in the videos, when you die, which we all will, would you want to meet Your Maker and have Him tell you, "you did pretty good, but you missed the one true reason you were created"? This is a powerful question, a motivational question that helped me find the sentence that I believe God wants to define my life.

I did the exercises, I filled in the charts and figured out where everything overlapped. Obedience is key, so is writing, this blog was started from a call from God so it had to fit in. The other key was Jesus. I want desperately to love like Jesus does, it showed in my answers to the class' questions. So here it is. The sentence that defines God's vision for my life, for where there is no vision, the people will perish.

"God has created me with a dream for my life, and I think it might be to obey God's calling within it, encouraging others to love like Jesus, to live intentionally like Jesus while documenting my journey to inspire my community"

So here I sit AC3, heart on my sleeve, an open book on this blog and throughout my life. I want you all to know that I live to glorify Jesus Christ. I live to bring my family and my friends to a close relationship with The One who created us. To me, that involves being obedient to "the call", being obedient so that my gifts can be given to He who gave them to me and to share them with the church that introduced me to The Lord of my life.

The last part of Chazown is as powerful as all of the others. You design a plan to follow your Chazown, you set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound goals and you set up accountability to achieve these goals. A 100 day action plan to launch God's vision for your life. Mine starts tonight, here on this blog and every one of you who has read this far in the post is my accountability partner on this blog. Let's talk about it, if you see me at church, let's get real about things happening within our walls, things you think need mentioning on here and I'll pursue them.

The next Chazown class.

Our church body needs your gifts. That's the intention of this class. Our God given gifts are meant to be shared with the community to make sure we continue to make this the safest place possible for non-believers like I was just a short time ago to become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. To light God's fire that he desperately wants inside you. Going through the motions, being lukewarm on God is no longer an option, we're called to more, all of us. Don't miss the target that God has set for you, He wants more impact for your life than most of us are willing to admit.

Here's the first video in the series, I encourage you to open your eyes and your heart to what God is calling you to do, your church needs your gifts I can assure you.