Road Trip

Where you grew up, or where you live, may not be where God wants to use you for His glory. Some of God's greatest workers have worked in harvest fields far away from their hometown or native land.

Don't fret if God is telling you that your mission field is not where you currently hang your hat or where you have some roots. Jesus is a perfect example of this. While Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He grew up in Nazareth, but when He returned to Nazareth as an adult to teach, the locals rejected Him and His message.

"Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked each other, seemingly unable to believe that the carpenter's boy was now speaking to them in such a powerful and amazing and gracious way. But in the end, their amazement turned to anger, and the people of Nazareth drove Jesus out of the town, and took Him to the brow of a cliff on which Nazareth was built, in order to try to throw Jesus off the side. They didn't succeed, but they made it crystal clear to Jesus that He wasn't welcome in Nazareth anymore, hometown boy or not.

"I tell you the truth," Jesus commented in Luke 4:24, "no prophet is accepted in his home town."

It may be the same for you. You may not find acceptance for your ministry in your hometown, or where you grew up, or where you put down some roots, but fear not. God has a plan for you - and He also has a place for you. Jesus' hometown did not accept Him, and your hometown may not accept you. But it's a great big world out there, and God knows exactly where He wants you to work for Him in His harvest field. If you ask Him, He'll give you the answer.

As Crazy As Building A Ship In The Desert

So there was Noah, living in the middle of the desert. He had never, ever seen rain before, at any time in his 500 long years of life.

And there was God, telling Noah that He was going to destroy all the world and its people, because of their corruption and violence. He was going to do it with a worldwide flood. Only Noah and his family would be saved, but Noah needed to get going on the construction of an ark and the rounding up of all the animals, before the floodgates of heaven were opened.

Remember this: Noah lived in the middle of the desert. He had never, ever seen rain in his entire life. He probably had to wait about 100 years from the time he began to build the ark until the moment that it began to rain. And for those 100 or so years, he most certainly had to put up with an endless parade of mocking neighbors, relatives, and former friends. They must have jeered Noah, laughed at him, called him every name in the book, and seriously questioned his sanity. For 100 years or so this probably went on.

But Genesis 7:5 tells us, quite simply and artfully, that "Noah did all that the Lord commanded him."

No questions, no doubt, no wondering if God was pulling a fast one on him. Noah simply did what God told him to do. No questions asked, even as he heard the catcalls and jeers from the crowd below as he slowly and arduously worked on his ark in the middle of the hot, dry, rainless desert.

Hebrews 11:7 says, "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family." Noah obeyed, and his family was saved.

There will come times in our lives, if we are followers of Christ, when God will ask us to do things that may seem absolutely crazy to us at the moment. We may not understand why God wants us to do a certain thing, or go to a certain place, or take a certain step out in faith, but if God is telling you to do something, or to go somewhere, then you need to do it, confident that God knows how and where the journey will end, and that He is looking to see if you will trust Him enough to take the first few steps out in faith. Do you trust Him or not? Will you trust Him or not?

We must have faith in God even when it doesn't make any sense to us.

Do You Know Where You're Going To?

So there was Abraham, 75 years old, rich, powerful, lots of money, lots of property, lots of servants, lots of animals, lots of possessions, lots of stuff, living large in the biggest tent in the land. He was sitting pretty. He was rich, he was successful, and he was comfortable.

And then God decided to shake things up a bit.

"Hey, Abraham," God said to him one day, "leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you."

That's quite a tall order from God. If God asked you to do the very same thing as He asked Abraham to do, would you do it? Would you leave your country, your people, your family, your friends, your culture, your language, your food, and your other creature comforts, if God told you to go? Be very honest with yourself.

In Genesis 12:4, we discover Abraham's answer. It says, "So Abraham left, as the Lord had told him...." What an answer! So short, so simple, and so beautiful. God told Abraham to do a huge thing, and to make an enormous change in his life, and Abraham simply obeyed. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Hebrews 11:8 tells us, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." What an incredible verse, and what an incredible example of faith and obedience by Abraham. He had no idea where he was going, but when God told Abraham to go, he went. No questions asked.

Can you do the same? Will you do the same? If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, there will be times in your life when God will ask you to do some big things, to stretch your faith, to get you out of your comfort zone. It probably won't be easy, and in fact it may be very hard. But God will be watching to see if you are obedient, and if you trust Him, and if you have the faith in Him to work it all out, when He tells you to do something or when He tells you to go somewhere. But will you do it?

We must have faith in God even when He takes us out of our comfort
zone. We must trust that He always knows where we are headed, even if we don't know where we're going to. Just like Abraham.

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind

So there were the Israelites, in a heap of trouble. The Red Sea raging in front of them, and Pharaoh's army charging behind them. No place to run to, no place to hide.

"What have you done to us, Moses!" the Israelites cried out to their leader. "What's the matter? Were there not enough graves for all of us in Egypt, so you brought us out here to die instead? We were better off as slaves in Egypt!"

"Don't be afraid," Moses responded as he looked out over the anguished multitude. "Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

And soon thereafter the millions of Israelites were safe and dry on the other side of the Red Sea, while Pharaoh's army and soldiers and horses and chariots were swept under the raging waters. The Israelites sang a song of victory, having seen the incredible miracle that God performed right at the moment when things looked impossible to them.

It's the same for us. We have troubles ahead of us, troubles behind us, and troubles to our left and right. We can't go anywhere. We're trapped. There's no relief in sight. It looks bleak. It looks hopeless. We anguish and cry and preoccupy and worry ourselves to the point of ulcers because we can't see the way out.

But we don't have the eyes of God.

And so while we fret and worry and get sick with tension, God says to us exactly what He told Moses to tell the Israelites: "Don't be afraid. Don't worry. I'll deliver you from your problem situation. I'll do the fighting for you. Just be still, and let Me do it."

It's awesome to know just how much God is willing to do for His children. When we stand before the Red Sea in our lives, surrounded by problems and battles and attacks on every side, God says that we don't have to do anything. Just stand still, and let Him do the fighting for us. He will do the fighting, and we will get the victory, and He will get the glory.

We must have faith in God, even when things look impossible to us.

Lions and Giants and Bears, Oh My!

Everybody knows the story of David and Goliath, and how the teenage shepherd boy killed the 9-foot-tall giant with just a sling and a single stone. But what many people forget, or never even notice, is that one of the reasons that David was so confident going into the epic battle with Goliath is because God had already helped him kill a lion and a bear with his own hands. After that, David knew, Goliath would be a piece of cake.

In 1 Samuel 17:34-36, David tells Saul, "When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; (Goliath) will be like one of them ...."

David knew he would kill Goliath, because God had already helped him to kill a lion and a bear. God had given him supernatural strength twice before, in a pair of life-threatening situations, and David knew that God would come through for him again.

It's the same for us. God puts "lions" and "bears" in our own lives - seemingly insurmountable problems or challenges that threaten to chew us up and spit us out. But then we see how God miraculously intervenes for us, and He slays the "lion" or the "bear" in our lives. Many times God does this because He knows that an even bigger "bear" or "lion" is lurking right around the corner - just like Goliath - and He wants us to know that we can trust Him and have faith in Him and know that He will supernaturally intervene, even as the "lion" or "bear" is ready to attack us.

We must have faith in God, even when the challenge in life - the "lion" or the "bear" - is very great.