The Apostle Paul was an amazing and prolific writer. It’s commonly accepted that he wrote up to 13 of the New Testament letters, four of them while in a prison cell.  Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church in North Carolina, points out that Paul, Barnabas and Apollos did a lot of touring and speaking together, and at one point Paul admits that he doesn’t have the stature of some of the other prophets and speakers. And so Furtick muses that because Paul was insecure about his speaking perhaps that is what turned him to writing. Would we even have Paul’s inspired writings,  had he not been insecure about his speaking? If he had not been stuck inside a prison cell?

Sometimes we are given  what looks to be a deficit, what looks to be a difficulty or a challenge…but how do we know what God might purpose it for? We don’t. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We have to get over  thinking that we need to or even can figure out how and why God does what he does.  We assume that if we can’t figure it out that there’s no good reason for it. It’s like we say we believe God is the Creator of the Universe, but then when something happens that our tiny  human brains don’t understand, we throw up our hands and say “Why God, why?” or “When God, when?” And we act like it all has to make sense to us!

Your Part In God’s Plan

So when we are confronted with a challenge or difficulty, or a situation in our life that we don’t understand, and we begin to feel angry, depressed, confused and hopeless,  maybe we can choose to take a new perspective on it. Instead of ‘Why?’ or ‘When?’ we can ask “What …does God want me to do with this?”

Maybe, although he did not cause your situation, God can use your very specific difficulty for a very unique reason. Maybe he’s asking you to respond in a certain way that will echo somewhere in the community or in the future for the good of someone else.

And when we don’t listen for God’s voice, or we hear God’s voice but we don’t obey… what is it we are missing out on? What is it we are giving up?

What or who, somewhere down the line, is being affected by our lack of action on God’s promptings? I have this feeling God is trying to orchestrate this beautiful life for us all. He’s trying to get these jigsaw puzzle pieces together in the way that he has intended. But because of his gift of free will, because he will not make us do something – he will only encourage us, only give us ideas and thoughts and promptings, only ask us- but  because God will not force us to do something, many good things go undone.

There is a negative force in this world, and if you are a Christian you may call it satan, or the devil, or the enemy. In any case, most people agree that evil exists in our world. And I believe there is an enemy and it comes to us in that little voice in our head that says “Nooo… Don’t step out there, you’ll look foolish!   No… You can’t do that – you have no experience.   No…don’t try that, what will people think?   What if you fail?”

And so evil in the world often succeeds in thwarting God’s plan for our life. How do we know that what we do today may or may not affect our great-great-great grandchildren? And if we don’t do that thing that God is asking us to do, how do we know what negative effects might come of it? How do we know that our actions weren’t supposed to be coupled together with some other person’s actions to create something really, really good? How do we know that right now maybe cancer should already be cured? Maybe homelessness and hunger and poverty, even.  Maybe if we all listened to the voice of God and acted on it, and obeyed him and trusted him… trusted that he really knows better than we do… What could we be accomplishing? What kind of world could we be living in?
 … And we know that all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Just Take the First Step

So…what has he given you to work with? What’s in your hands? Maybe at this point in your life, you have time to spare. Maybe you have money. Or maybe it’s a unique talent or experience. Maybe it’s some kind of difficulty that you’ve been through, or are still going through, that you can guide someone else through. Someone that’s further down that path than you are.

Maybe just take a few minutes with God and ask him what he wants you to do, with what you already have. Chances are you already have a pretty good idea. I don’t think God makes it hard for us to figure this out. But – and here’s the hard part – once you have that idea, you’ve gotta step out. You’ve got to trust God. You gotta stick your toe in the water and take that first step. That is something God will not do for you.

But he will enable you. He will  guide and support you. He’s waiting for you to take that first step. And when you do, he will be there every step of the way to help, if you let him.