Boldly Go!

Have you ever been talking to God and gotten a little whiney? Perhaps you are frustrated with your lack of growth or visible progress in a particular area of your life. Or maybe you are feeling tired and beaten down by a situation that JUST. WON’T. END.

The next thing you know you are saying, “Lord whyyyyyyyy are you making me go through this? None of the other people around me are dealing with this mess! I’ve been faithful and I’ve been obedient, and I feel like I am in the center of your will for me, and then BAM! out of Nowheresville I get blindsided with the attack that never ends! Why can’t you just intervene for me?!”

Or maybe it sounds more like this, “Lord, I want to know what my gift is! I want to know where I fit into the Kingdom, what I am supposed to be doing for you. Susie Q over here is finding her niche and her calling and she is KILLIN’ it! It comes so easy for her! I don’t begrudge her any of that! But I am a little envious that she KNOWS what she is supposed to be doing and I don’t. I am floating around here in left field Lord! Please give me some direction!”

Have you been in either of those places? I sure have. I imagine I sounded like a whiney 5 year old, “But Goooooood…..whyyyyyyyyyy? Can’t you just…..?”

While there is no hard and fast answer for those questions that fit everybody’s situations, here is the answer that seemed to keep coming up for me.

You are not going where they are going.

You are not called to what SHE/HE is called to do.

He has a special plan for you and that is going to take special circumstances (not all of them pleasant) to equip you.

Think of it like this, your purpose, your calling, is not exactly like ANYBODY ELSE’S purpose or calling. You started out in a place that is unique to you (not even siblings that come out of the same household have an identical childhood experience.) You are going to a place that is exclusive to you. Therefore, your journey to get there is not going to be exactly like anybody else’s journey. You will have unique circumstances and challenges. You will cross over unique rivers and streams of sorrow, or trial, or trouble (go here to read about Abraham crossing over) and you will end up in a place, a gifting, a calling, an anointing, that God designed especially for you!

Moses started out in a unique place. At three months old, he was in a basket floating down the Nile river. He was a simple Hebrew slave boy, and he ended up being raised in an Egyptian palace like royalty. Then he killed an Egyptian and ran out into the desert to Midian and lived for 40 years. He took a job tending the sheep of a priest, and married the priest’s daughter. It wasn’t until AFTER all that Moses went back to Egypt to fulfill his God-given destiny. God was preparing him by giving him knowledge and an “in” with the Pharaoh. God didn’t ordain the murder of the Egyptian, or Moses running away. But God wastes nothing. He was preparing Moses by putting him in the desert of Midian doing hard work and learning the value of it. Why? Because Moses wasn’t going where everybody else was going. He had a unique calling! So there was a unique journey that taught him and equipped him and led him to where he was supposed to be.

Joseph was his Daddy’s favorite. He probably lived a pretty cushy life. But his brothers threw him into a dry cistern (like a pit or well). They took his coat and smeared it with blood and lied to their father, telling Jacob (their father) that Joseph was dead. Then, they sold their baby brother into slavery (Incidentally, the guys that bought him were Ishmaelites – descendants of Ismael, Abraham’s son with the handmaiden Hagar. But that’s a whooooole ‘nother story.) He worked as a slave, and did a great job! He was promoted! And then Joseph was falsely accused of rape by his boss’ wife and thrown into prison. It was only AFTER all of that troubles that Joseph’s life began looking up and he began to come into the circumstances where he would become 2nd in command of Egypt, save his family (and in doing that, his people), and fulfill his God-given destiny.

Joseph tells his brothers in Genesis 50:20 ESV “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

There is NO WAY, Joseph could have gone from cushy, spoiled favorite son straight into the situation that God had created him for. He had to be shaped and molded and learn lessons that would serve him and equip him.

Now, does that mean that God ORDAINED the difficult circumstances these guys went through? Certainly not. God DID NOT ORDAIN the killing of the male babies in Egypt that caused Moses’ mother to put him in a basket to save his life. God hates the shedding of innocent blood. God DID NOT ORDAIN Joseph’s brothers throwing him into a well, deceiving his father, and selling him into slavery. But God doesn’t let anything go to waste, either! The Word says that He uses what was meant for harm, for good. He used the circumstances to mold and shape these guys into powerful men of God! In fact, one might say that the harder the circumstances, the greater the man in the end!

To use a phrase coined by Star Trek (yes, y’all, I know I am showing my age) God was preparing them to BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAD GONE BEFORE!

And rest assured, he has those same plans for you! He created you! He knew you before you were even in your mother’s womb! He knew what special talents He was going to give you! He knew the special calling He wanted to place on your life and how to use your circumstances to equip you. He knew which gifts and anointing would be suited to you and your unique talents. He KNEW! He KNOWS! And the reason you are going through things, and feeling things, and being challenged in places like nobody else, is because you are going places nobody else is going! You have a destiny that nobody else has! No man or woman before you has gone exactly where you are going!

So ask yourself, what can I learn from this? (Because let me tell you fam, it is wisdom to learn the lesson the first time so it doesn’t have to be taught to you again – don’t ask me how I know.) Let God use your circumstances to change your perspective and give you compassion and empathy towards people that you may not have had before. As the popular saying goes, “Bloom where you are planted!” Stay in the Word so that you can be molded and shaped by GOD into what He wants you to be, and not warped and misshapen and made bitter by bad circumstances.

Let HIM be the potter for your clay, not the world.

Let Him lead you and BOLDLY GO where He has created you to go!

 

Isaiah 64:8 ESV    But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Romans 8:28 ESV    And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV    For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

 

 

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