I posted a while back about getting World Vision children at work and how I hoped God would break my heart for the needs of this world. Well, answered prayer--we finally got a little girl sponsored, and the family that chose her was such a blessing to me. It was a young couple, her obviously pregnant, and their one year old son. When the husband came to the register, he asked me to keep in prayer his aunt who was only given 2 days to live because of a brain tumor problem. I felt really pressed just to pray for/with that family right then. The awesome thing about where I work is that this is not something I'll get scolded for. So I asked them if it was okay, and sure enough we had prayer at the register. I believe when God tells us to move, we move. In the same vein, when He tells us to sit still--we should sit still (so often I find this is the harder one for me to do). There are countless examples of this throughout the Bible--Moses, Abraham, Job, etc. etc. etc. God has been in the moving business way longer than U-Haul. ;)
When we thinking about moving/doing/going and being used for Christ and His purpose, we must not think of our own strengths and weaknesses--for that gets us nothing. We see that intially after recieving his call, Moses doubts and says, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:10). Moses--the dude who changed history (with the help of God) by freeing a huge slave population bound by the strongest country in the world at that time--HE doubted? We think--"that's crazy! Didn't he see that God had this great plan? He talked to a bunring bush for goodness sakes?!?"--but as they say 'hindsight is 20/20. How often in your life have you felt like you should do something and haven't? What's interesting here is to look at the process of acknowledgement of God's power (that's right Moses knew God COULD do it) to his practical denial of God's ability--yes, that is a contradiction. Here goes (and yes, I'm putting this in my own words)--
1. Curiousity-Here we have Moses chillin out watching daddy-in-law's sheep and an angel appears in the flames of fire in a bush that's not burning up..so, of course, He gets curious and goes to check this out (Exodus 3:1-3)
2. Wonder, Awe, and...Fear?- Next we see God talk to Moses--at this point, it says Moses "hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God." Intense. So here Moses identifes that 'clearly this guy (being God) has more power than me.' (Exodus 3:4-6). Next God lays out his master plan and is like--here's the problem...ok, here's what I need you to do. Next comes the one we're probably all too familiar with...
3. Rejection- Looking again at v. 11-Moses is like 'hold up--ME--what ever can you do with poor little old shepherd me...I'm hated in Egypt-they know I killed a man...you must have the wrong guy.'
4. Excuses meet worst case scenario- Starting in chapter 4, we see a continuation of Moses telling God to hold up, there's a mistake...but in reality, there's not. This is the part I struggle with. When God tells me in the grocery to say something to a complete stranger/strike up a convo or to tell a friend about Christ...it's all about 'no no, see, God you don't understand, that's not culturally normal.' or 'anything I say won't make a difference' and so on and so forth...now notice what I just typed sounds ridiculous- "see God YOU (the one who created me, and knows all things) don't understand." But it's true, I've done it. In fact, any time we try to reason why God tells us to move or to mold it to our own approach, it is generally an epic fail. God does things a certain way for a certain reason.
I believe a portion of the unbelief in this world can be attributed to the failure of Christians to do what God tells us to when He tells us to do it. Notice, there that I did not say the failure of Christ, or God's will, but we who deem ourselves Christ followers---and this unbelief I'm attributing is because we try to take matters into our own hands and not listen to the Big Guy Upstairs. I've done it plenty of times. There's no telling how many lives would be changed to the better had I done all I've been told. On the flip side of the coin, I've had instances where I've done what He said when He said it and was amazed by the outcome--sometimes, rather often, God moves beyond logic--that's why we call them miracles and works of God--it doesn't always make sense how He makes things work, yet He does.
A pastor once shared a story about a woman who was very serious about her faith feeling led to do cartwheels in front of church one Sunday during the invitation. Now obviously, this is not your typical Sunday morning church activity. She had an open heart and sought God's will and prayed about it, but obviously wondered if this was really something God was telling her to do. So she went up to the pastor after service and asked if it would be ok if she did these cartwheels. He told her to do what God told her, and sure enough at the next service's invitation she felt led to do it again. She went up front and started doing cartwheels across the stage. Funny thing is, (God works in awesome ways) there was a person in the congregation that felt like they should go and pray and accept Christ as Savior. They had told God, "I'll go to the altar if someone does cartwheels during service."....completely crazy--they got saved.
I'm not arguing that we can always just strike bargains with God and expect to see signs, but what I am saying is to never underestimate God and His ability to use you (or others). I don't care how stupid/ugly/sinful/low income/ forgettful/just plain messed up in society's eyes/etc (insert your excuse here) that you think you are, you are a workmanship of God, created in His image...and just like the 'crazy' cartwheel woman and stuttering, murderous, vengeful, wondering Moses, He can use you in powerful way.
So stop wondering 'why me, what do I have, why that way, why now, etc'....just do/be/go. Seek to understand, but when an opportunity arises be willing to do flips for God.
God does not belong in a box. Neither does His will. Neither do you.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment