Rudy Rasmus pastors a church he started in the 90s with 9 members. Today he ministers with his wife to 9,000 souls just outside Houston, TX. But last Sunday he spoke in Indianapolis and began his message by telling us about the day he was planning to end his life.
It was August 14th in 2017, and he was sitting in a coffee shop, overwhelmed by a belief that his life no longer had meaning. He called the therapist he’d been seeing for many years who listened to his discontentment, his weighty problems, and his crushing feeling of hopelessness.
She listened attentively, paused for a moment and quietly said, “Rudy, you’ve been running from failure your entire life, maybe you should consider a perspective change. Instead of looking behind you, why don’t you start looking ahead?” Then this (Jewish) therapist added, “And Rudy, why don’t you try Jesus?”
Like Rudy, Jesus is the reason many of us are still alive. So Rudy began to look back at himself as a child and realized that he used to look ahead. As a kid he dreamed of a wide open world where racism didn’t exist, where he could sit anywhere on any bus at any time and use any door. But Rudy grew up, became a pastor, started a huge church, and in the rush of success and life he forgot how to dream. Running from failure, he had forgotten how to look ahead.
Discontentment and hopelessness are two signals that we are stuck. It is a decision to remain stuck, he says, and it keeps us from choosing something better. Our challenge is to come to the crossroads of discontentment and dreaming and choose to dream—to embrace a future that will take us to a new place of understanding and happiness.
Dreaming unleashes God’s power in our minds—a series of thoughts not under the control of reason, but under the control of the highest power. It is in those moments of forward-thinking inspiration we can move beyond reason and become free to manifest the miraculous in our lives. Think of Joseph’s dreams of how he would one day have great influence, and know that your dreams can come true as well.
Running from failure is exhausting and Jesus is the exit ramp. In Deuteronomy 30, God said, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life.” That’s what Rudy chose. Yep, it’s all right there in the Book.
Thanks Rudy,
Nancy
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