The moment I met Logan Wolfram five years ago, she was hesitant to interrupt me as I sat eyes closed soaking in the music of my favorite piano player, David Nevue at the Allume Conference. (You can hear his music in the playlist in the menu bar at the top of the blog). “I feel like I have a word for you, an encouragement from the Lord,” she said, and then she dropped to her knees beside me and laid the words on me like a ton of feathers…weighty but the softness of the Father.  Since then, this firecracker sister and I have prayed down heaven together over. She loves people, and community, and laughter, but more than any of those things, Logan loves Jesus with a contagious and authentic spirit that can’t help but draw you in. Logan knows what it is to live curious, and I invite you to join her in the journey of a Curious Faith to tune your ear to Jesus and unlock the hope of heaven in your own life too. It’s a grace to welcome Logan to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by Logan Wolfram

We call it FMN for short.

Family movie night.

And what it really means is all four of us climbing into bed, and not worrying over dropped popcorn kernels that will certainly later poke me in the middle of the night.

It’s chocolate milk and pizza and old family favorites from my husband’s and my childhood.

Star Wars, The Swiss Family Robinson, Pippi Longstocking, and my personal all-time favorite Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

I continue to notice in my adulthood how much different my perspectives are rewatching these old favorites.

New truths pop out and arrest my spirit in ways that perhaps even pave the way for God to move big in my soul.

It happened with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Wonka, master of glorious confectionary inventions, had dreams, plans, and ideas beyond anything that anyone had imagined before. Locked behind great iron gates in his factory were wonders inconceivable. No one had ever entered, but it was generally understood that much goodness was contained within the walls.

The innovation and creativity that emerged was proof enough that the man behind it all had greater vision that any other candy maker in the world.

As the story goes, five lucky children win access to the magnificent factory of candy-making wonder. The whole globe becomes a frenzy of candy buyers, each trying to find a golden ticket hidden in a chocolate bar to secure his or her place in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Once inside, the children began to tour the fantastical facility. One by one, each child makes choices along the journey that disqualify him or her from continuing the experience. Obsession, gluttony, idolatry, and impatience oust the individual participants from continuing the tour through the factory.

One by one, they forfeited unlimited possibility in favor of maintaining control.

Sound familiar?

How often do we forfeit possibility with God in favor of maintaining control?

If there’s one thing life keeps teaching me, it’s that I can’t actually control the journey despite my best attempts.

God in His goodness continues to show that if I’ll just quit trying so hard to control it all, He can take me places I’ve never even dared to imagine.

Where as a child I had seen a handful of kids entering the sweets factory of a creative mastermind, I now began imagine my own humanity staring down the kingdom of God.

In Mike, Veruca, Violet, Augustus, and Charlie, our own struggles are reflected that set us wandering outside of the goodness meant for us.

If we can learn to embrace curiosity after the things of God, we just might inherit the keys to the whole Kingdom. We just might unlock adventure and possibility that we have never dared to dream for ourselves.

How many ways do we too, disrupt the adventure God could have for us?

We so often allow control, impatience, selfishness, gluttony even for good things, and idolatry to stand in the way of following God into His goodness with reckless abandon.

We think we know what is best and so we grab tight onto control to pursue our own possibility.

I am Charlie Bucket in Wonkaland. I am born into brokenness and long to see and experience the fullness of the great inventor and his inconceivable goodness.

I’d guess you are too.

The hope we have in that endless possibility with God is as accessible to us as our curiosity is to pursue Him.

Way better than being one of five who wins, we are all given the opportunity to enter the Kingdom of God.

In Christ, we can all unlock endless wonder and possibility when we pursue God with a Curious Faith.

And so the question becomes, will I let go of control and be curious enough to pursue Him? Will I chase hard to uncover the truth and goodness of God to unlock all that is possible?

The certainty of our faith isn’t found in where we are going, but in Whom we are following.

If we want to truly inherit the kingdom of God, we need to let go of all we try to control and reimagine possibility through the lens of God’s goodness.

A curious and continuous pursuit of our good God opens doors for us to experience all possibility beyond what we could imagine for ourselves.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m picking what is good for my life, then it’s probably going to feel good, look good, taste good, smell good, and be visibly good to anyone who sees it.

But the truth is, even some of the things that have looked “bad” from the outside have turned out to be good for me.

Because, while the currency of God’s goodness looks different from my own, it is infinitely more valuable.

Hard things make us dig deep within ourselves to find strength we didn’t know we had.

Loss teaches us to appreciate blessings that surround us.

And while I don’t want to minimize the depth of any pain and the years it can take to overcome the brokenness we experience in this life, there is good to be found, even in the hard and even through the bad.

As we embrace a curious faith, we exchange the currency of our control for the wealth of God’s possibility.

Maybe sometimes we do think we can control the way things go. To some extent we have the capacity to define our own paths and make decisions that shape the way we live.

We can direct behaviors and events, but when we allow that thinking to rule the way we live, we also lose the capacity to be curious about things unknown and outside of our own plans, outside of our limited view.

Control robs us of curiosity and puts a ceiling on our allowance of God’s possibility in our lives. Because after all, you can’t be curious about something you control.

I’ve heard it said, “Blessed are the curious … for they shall have adventures.” And, friend, when we try to control our lives, we miss out on the adventure of faith.

If we always see or know where we’re going or what we’re doing, we’ll miss Wonkaland…

and we just might miss the endless hope and possibility of the Kingdom.

Release control…

be curious, and rediscover hope in the God of possibility.

 

 

Logan Wolfram would give you full access to her pantry if you lived next door. She is a plate-juggling mom and interior decorator turned author, speaker, and host of the Allume Conference. She is a passionate leader who desires to see women live fully in Christ. 

Curious Faith: Rediscovering Hope in the God of Possibility is about rescuing the now…and exploring possibility with a God who is unlimited, unpredictable, and ever-loving. Inordinate, everyday curiosity shows you how to find the co-ordinates of God’s everyday grace. With fresh vision and vibrant faithfulness, Logan hands you a needed compass with these pages. A powerful read for soul-change.

[ Our humble thanks to Cook Publishers  for their partnership in today’s devotion ]