It’s been said that timing is everything. In a way, that’s true; timing is, at least, vital. Without proper timing everything else is worthless. What good is it to do the right things if it’s too early or too late?
Acts 1 records the final conversation Jesus had with His disciples before ascending to Heaven. They wanted to know when the restoration of Israel would take place, if He would do it now that He had risen from the tomb. He answered, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business.” (The Message).
Timing is always set by the one in authority. Students don’t decide when their assignments are due; the teacher does. The one convicted doesn’t get to decide when the prison term begins and ends; a judge does that.
Try going to your boss and telling them you expect something on your desk by a certain time. The boss welcomes your request for whatever you need to do your job, but they’ll decide when it’s delivered. And the boss gets to dictate to you when they expect you to accomplish a task. Timing is always in the hands of the one in authority. Therefore, God holds the timing of things in our lives.
Returning to Acts 1, we see that God gave the disciples what they needed (the Holy Spirit), and instructed them that their job was to obey His instructions (wait in Jerusalem). That was, and still is, the arrangement of responsibilities: God handles the timing, and we obey His instructions.
The challenge comes when our idea of timing differs from God’s. I should’ve been offered a job by now (my current situation; please pray for me)…I should be with my future spouse by now…God is late bringing a buyer for my house…My spouse and I need to conceive a child now.
I’m sure some of the disciples were tempted to get on with fulfilling the Great Commission, but if they’d moved forward without the Holy Spirit, their work would’ve been fruitless. The Holy Spirit is always needed to bring people to faith in Christ; it can be done without us, but never without Him.
Likewise, it’s God’s Spirit who’s needed to meet our needs, and He always knows when the best time for it is. Timing is His business; our job is to be obedient and trust Him.
As long as we’re faithful with our job and trust God to do His, things will turn out. And with perfect timing.
Jesus offended the Jewish religious leaders of His day, the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. But what was it about Him that offended them most? Was it that He could do things they couldn’t, like heal the sick and lame, give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, even raise the dead?
Surely, they felt threatened by these miraculous acts. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the religious leaders, especially the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in the resurrection, made it their top priority to eliminate Lazarus as proof of Jesus’ power over the grave, so they tried to kill the man Jesus had brought back to life. (I can’t imagine why they didn’t understand the futility of that plan.)
What about Jesus’ teaching? Is that what it was that offended them most? It was said that He taught with authority, and not like the other teachers of His day. Hearing that must’ve really cooked their goose. He said things like, you’ve heard it said…but I say to you…the least among you shall be the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven…your righteousness must exceed that of the religious leaders.
The things Jesus said and taught were doubtless offensive to His opponents. I believe what He said got their attention more than anything else He did, but I’ll return to that in a moment.
First, though, let’s consider another offensive factor, popular opinion. What the Jewish population thought of Jesus and were saying about Him was important to the religious leaders. They valued popular opinion because they needed it to accomplish their agendas. So, when the crowds who followed Jesus around to see His miracles and hear His teaching said they thought He was the Messiah, the religious leaders took it as a threat; people were believing the promised epic political-religious-military leader was there to receive all their allegiance, the allegiance the religious leaders craved for themselves so badly.
Returning to the matter of Jesus’ own words being most offensive to the leaders, there was one message in particular that sent the religious bigots over the top. It was His own claim that He was the Messiah – or any phraseology that resembled such a claim – that they found most offensive.
It was one thing for the crowds to say it, but quite another for Jesus, Himself, to say it. That’s why they made such strong attempts at getting Jesus to say something offensive; if they could hear it from His own mouth, they’d have ammunition enough to legally kill Him.
So, they salivated when He referred to Himself as the Son of Man or spoke of His Heavenly Father.
As long as He was teaching challenging truths or working undeniable miracles, His eventual accusers, although not pleased, didn’t accuse Him of blasphemy. But once He showed awareness of His own position in God’s Kingdom, He was persecuted, captured, falsely accused and killed.
A powerful principle shows itself in this process, one that applies to you and me as well. We offend most when we show that we’re aware of our own favored position in God’s kingdom.
Our enemy knows God favors us, and he knows we don’t deserve it. It isn’t that the devil is ok with that reality. But what really shakes him is when we become aware of the love, favor, privileges, gifts and abilities God has given to us. He knows that, until we know our God-given potential, we’re sleeping giants. He’s hoping against all hope that we don’t wake up to our reality.
We may see people in our lives become jealous of us, feeling it unfair that we have benefits we haven’t earned. But those people aren’t our problem. We wrestle not against flesh and blood (people), but against the demonic forces of Hell’s kingdom, which is always against us, but over whom we have victory in Christ Jesus.
We can allow neither Hell nor earth to deny us the privileges Jesus afforded us by His sacrifice and His powerful return to life.
So, let us be courageous; let us remain aware of who we are in Christ, supernaturally empowered beings gifted with abilities we don’t deserve, but are called by God to use for Him. Let the enemy be offended; it will not change who we are, but only defeat him further.
In Spanish, solo means only. I want to use SOLO as an acrostic for four of the most important characteristics of God on which to build our faith. If we understand these four things about God, we may know enough about Him to have a strong faith. We could say that this knowledge is the only truly necessary knowledge for the foundation of strong faith. Here are those four characteristics of God.
In Spanish, solo means only. I want to use SOLO as an acrostic for four of the most important characteristics of God on which to build our faith. If we understand these four things about God, we may know enough about Him to have a strong faith. We could say that this knowledge is the only truly necessary knowledge for the foundation of strong faith. Here are those four characteristics of God.
Sovereign. God reports to none, is under none’s authority; He reigns over all and serves His own purposes. Nothing is out of His control; He commands all His realm. He has the inexplicable ability to allow us free will without compromising His sovereignty in the least. He has no rival, no equal, no peer; He is holy, unique and incomparable. He is the only true sovereign. The so-called sovereignty of the greatest nations, empires, kingdoms and beings all ultimately comes from Him and submits to Him. His sovereignty can be trusted. He alone is sovereign.
Omnipotent. Our highest, most extravagant thoughts come short of what God is able to do. If we could consider every possibility in the most difficult circumstances, we couldn’t exhaust the options available to God, because He simply can do anything; not only can He, but He is doing, has done and will do anything and everything according to His magnificent will. He is the Almighty; with Him, nothing is impossible. His ability can be trusted because it is limitless. He is all-powerful. Omnipotent.
Love. How fortunate that such a powerful, sovereign God is also perfect in love. Love – the kind that doesn’t require its recipient to earn it – is not something God merely practices or created; rather, He is love. His love is made known as He is made known. We receive His love because He loves us, based on who He is, not who we are. His love always endures, is patient and always perseveres. It never fails; His love can be totally trusted.
Omnipresent. If we descend to the lowest depths or rise to the highest heights, God is with us. He transcends all barriers, exists in every reality, is present in every kind of trouble. We cannot exit His presence, whether by the efforts of another or of our own, but we can completely trust that He is always present. He is omnipresent.
In my book, Brilliant Faith, I assert that our faith needs to have basis, and that basis is what we know about God. If our knowledge of God is accurate, then our faith is well founded, valid and has a strong foundation. I list seven God traits in the book, these four are the most essential.
If we remember and trust these four things about God, I believe we have the only – SOLO – knowledge of Him necessary. Knowing Him better and better as we walk intimately with Him will enhance our relationship with Him and faith in Him. But to know God SOLO will serve us well.
Hidden in the recesses of the sacred book many have on their shelves but seldom open is a guarantee that needs to be read, internalized and trusted. It’s the guarantee of satisfaction, and, unlike many guarantees we hear or see, is a hundred percent valid.
This sacred passage is a record of Jesus’ words spoken to a multitude gathered from the regions of Syria, Judea and Galilee. This guarantee is prefaced by several paradoxical statements and followed by several more.
In the midst of these statements that startled their hearers is the guarantee: the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled. Guaranteed.
This guarantee transcends both geography and time; it’s both timeless and universal, so it applies to us as much as to the ones on the hillside who heard the words as Jesus spoke them.
It helps to think of this in reverse, considering the joy of being satisfied, and working back from there to learn how. It has everything to do with our desires, what we want, our hunger and thirst.
My mom once told me that, to be satisfied in marriage, we must learn to want what our spouse wants. This motherly wisdom mirrors Jesus’ guarantee in Matthew 5:6.
To control our desires, we need to pay attention to three –eds:
1. Yielded. Jesus knelt before the Heavenly Father in a garden just outside Jerusalem. He had, for once, come to a crossroads where His own will, as a human seemed different from the Father’s. We humans who, unlike Jesus, aren’t divine as well as human, see this crossroads often. So, Jesus exemplified for us the correct action in that situation. He said, in prayer to the Father, not My will, but Yours be done. Jesus yielded to the Father, yielded His desires to the desires of His Father. This is Jesus teaching us what to do with desires conflicting with God’s: yield them. Give God the right of way. Suddenly, we’re on the path with His desires, aligned with Him, finding our will has changed; we now want what the King of the Universe wants. Now the probability of getting what we want has gone from 0% to 100%. Guaranteed.
2. Delighted. David wrote for us, from a different perspective, the process of having our desires met. The 4th verse of Psalms 37 is ambiguous, with two meanings that are both complimentary to one another and dually beneficial to us. Delight yourself in the Lord, writes the Psalmist, and He will give you the desires of your heart. There’s a two-step process here that unfolds the ambiguity. First, in delighting ourselves in the Lord, we find that He’s given us fresh, new desires, ones that match up with His. Second in the process is that He fulfills those desires. Again, we have desires in line with those of the Sovereign, Almighty God. As He fulfills His own desires, He’s fulfilling ours, too, because the same desires are both His and ours. We’re satisfied. Guaranteed.
3. Filled. In Ephesians 5:18, Paul instructs us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In the verse before that, he invites us to know the will of the Lord. Verse 18 reveals the way to gain what verse 17 avails, the will of God. In other words, to understand the will of God, allow His Spirit to fill your heart and mind. Imagine yourself standing under a vessel that God is pouring out upon you, into you. You’re standing under – understanding – what God is pouring into you, His Spirit, thereby, taking in His will as your own. You are adopting His will because you have opened yourself up to receive it. This is what these two verses mean. Now you are filled, Satisfied. Guaranteed.
By the three –eds, you can see how we can change our desires to match up with God’s. And God is righteous, so His desires are righteous. And now that we’ve adopted His desires, our hunger and thirst is for righteousness. And, as Jesus promised in His sermon to the multitude on the hillside – the Sermon on the Mount – we will be filled. Satisfied. Guaranteed!
A phenomenon emerged in professional sports, particularly the NBA, in the past fifteen years called the super team. It takes three great players to qualify a team as a super team. Lebron, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh formed one in Miami, followed by the teaming up of Lebron, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in Cleveland. Then, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, with Draymond Green added for good measure, gathered for Golden State.
In reality, the super team had been around for generations. There was Michael, Scottie and Rodman with the Bulls. Before that, it was Magic, Kareem and Worthy for the Lakers; the big three in Boston were Bird, McHale and Parrish; in Detroit, Isaiah, Dumars and Laimbeer won championships.
There actually have always been super teams. Russell, Cousy and Havlicek dominated the sixties; Wilt, Jerry and Elgin emerged in the seventies. The difference, and what brought about the super team moniker, is that the teams in the past few years were orchestrated by the players, themselves, whereas, franchise executives masterminded them in previous decades. But managerial personnel have long felt a team needed three strong players to contend for a title.
Far more important than professional sports are the souls of people. To overcome sin and Satan and gain eternal life, God knew each person needed a super team. The difference from the pro sports super teams is that, for us, it only takes two. One of the two is an individual believer, and the other is Jesus.
Paul wrote that he could do all things through Christ. The angel told Mary that nothing would be impossible, even this miraculous virgin-birth prophecy, with God. In Romans we’re called hyper-champions – translated, more than conquerors – through Him who loves us. Isaiah wrote that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.
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Scripture makes it clear that, as a super team (the individual and Jesus), we’re invincible. I don’t know of a sports team that could be considered undefeatable. In my opinion, the 1992 Dream Team would come closest. But our utterly victorious future is ironclad guaranteed in Christ.
One thing has always bothered me about the super teams. The other members of the teams are undervalued and de-emphasized. Those other players are essential but are overlooked as fans and commentators focus on the big three. There’s a similarity with the Jesus & you and Jesus & me super teams. The community of believers each of us has is vital for our success and should not be overlooked.
So, thanks to Jesus, and to my community of fellow believers for allowing me to be a part of the best kind of super team! Wouldn’t you say the same to your team?
In the 1930s, the US government, namely, the Bureau of Investigation, recognized John Dillinger as Public Enemy Number 1. Leader of the Dillinger Gang during the Great Depression, he allegedly led the robbery of twenty-four banks and four police stations. It was Dillinger’s exploits that prompted J. Edgar Hoover to expand the name and scope of the Bureau of Investigation to the FBI.
When Jesus introduced Himself and the Kingdom of Heaven to the generation of Jews desperate for the promised Messiah, Israel was, doubtless, unified as to who their public enemy number one was: Rome. But Jesus upset many when He revealed that He didn’t come to overthrow Rome; rather, He came to free them from a different oppressor, personal enemy number one: sin.
Jesus brought all kinds of surprises with His Messianic mission, not the least of which being a focus on the personal rather than the public. He didn’t correct all the injustices or malfunctions in broader society, but instructed His followers to forgive and give extra to those who mistreated them. Rather than reform the practices of the Pharisees (law enforcement officers of the Law of Moses), Sadducees (like Pharisees but differing in theology) , Essenes (diplomatically anti-Rome) and Zealots (militantly anti-Rome), Jesus taught that Jewish citizens should concentrate their efforts on personal repentance and receiving God’s kingdom in their hearts. He was clearly focused on the personal over the public, the relational over the religious.
Samson and David, though not contemporaries, were both warriors who led God’s people, each in their day. Something else they had in common is that they were very successful fighting their number one public enemy – both, the Philistines – but failed miserably against their number one personal enemy – lust.
It happens similarly in the modern-day church. Some Christians take a strong stand against the “public” issues they see as a threat to Christian decency but tolerate skeletons of secret sins in their own closets. Although I’m using the pronoun “they,” it’s “my” sins that God addresses with me. What sin should I be most concerned with? Mine. Should I love the sinner and hate the sin? Fine, but I must be sure to love people much louder than I hate anyone’s sin.
Jesus thematically answered questions or complaints about the system (secular or religious) by directing them to the personal. Who made Me judge of your civil matters; just be willing to take the loss…your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees… let the one without sin cast the first stone…neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more…sell all that you have and give it to the poor, then come follow Me.
As the Holy Spirit continues the ministry of Jesus, He works in us in the most personal way. That’s one reason why He dwells within us rather than merely among us. He’s situated right there in our hearts, where we think and feel, where He can sense most closely our purity of heart or ungodly attitudes.
God being so close to us and caring so much about our heart’s condition and contents, He certainly will help us understand what our individual personal enemy number 1 is. He recently pointed mine out to me, and once He did, it became clear that it was my top priority in spiritual warfare. It’s that particular fiery dart that my shield of faith must extinguish. Since having that understanding and strategy, I’ve been more successful in maintaining purity of heart.
So, I invite you to seek God about yours. Is it offense and bitterness, greed and materialism, laziness and idleness, gluttony and pleasure, lust and destructive attraction? The Holy Spirit will show you, I guarantee, and without condemnation, but with grace.
The question: what’s your personal enemy number 1?
Prophecies are given for two reasons: so that we may connect a prophecy to its fulfillment when it occurs, thereby glorifying God and growing our faith; and so that we may repent and position ourselves for God’s favor.
The first recorded prophecy of the coming Messiah had three hearers. God spoke it to Eve and to the serpent in the hearing of the third hearer, Adam. Adam and Eve would produce One (the seed of the woman) who would bruise the head of the serpent, while the serpent would bruise His heel.
Adam and Eve heard the prophecy and produced a lineage that would eventually fulfill the prophecy. As Moses later recorded it, it was passed down in writing through a hundred or more generations. As their seed read the prophecy, they became watchful for this One who would bruise the serpent’s head.
The serpent, who was the head of the enemy kingdom, had a different reaction to the prophecy, a third and foolish response. He set out to prevent the prophecy’s fulfillment. He organized his minions to detect and eliminate this “seed” that would bruise his head.
The first seeds of the woman, Cain and Abel, had to be dealt with, so the enemy drew Cain off course, whispering murderous thoughts to him. By those murderous ideas, Abel would be snuffed out, along with his line. But the enemy didn’t count on a third line, that of Seth.
Generations rolled by, but Hell’s king never forgot his strategy, and never stopped surveilling for clues of this “seed.” His influence was so effective that it reached all of mankind, provoking God to judge of the whole world.
But if Satan, the serpent of old, remembered his strategy, God remembered His all the more. He selected Noah and his son, Shem, for the lineage of the promised seed. While the flood was God’s judgment, the ark was His vehicle of promise, mercy and fulfillment of His prophecy.
Satan’s next attempt was to inspire mankind to unify without God and form a towering civilization so mighty that it would never need God. However, God frustrated these plans by confusing the language and dividing mankind into smaller groups, each unified by their own special language.
It was in the language of a Chaldean, Abram (later named Abraham), that God made promises and established Abraham as a patriarch of the promised seed. Satan must’ve felt victorious when Abraham raised the knife to kill his son, Isaac. But once again, God was a step ahead of the enemy and eventually used Isaac to beget two sons.
Like he did with Cain and Able, Satan would attempt to pull one son (Esau) off course and kill the other (Jacob). But Jacob was preserved as the patriarch of the nation from which the “seed” would come.
Elimination of the nation of Israel (new name given to Jacob) was Satan’s next mission, but he failed at the Red Sea and on several occasions in the wilderness.
By this time, Satan had heard the prophecies that his future bruiser would come from the tribe of Judah, and he devised his strategy accordingly.
In the Promised Land, it was Achan from the tribe of Judah whom the enemy tempted into idoltry, resulting in the deaths of Achan’s entire family.
Later, David was Satan’s target. Many times, the king of Israel, from the tribe of Judah, faced the threat of death on the battlefield, and lost several of his sons. The enemy was ever busy in attempt to prevent this “seed” from ever being born. But his busyness proved futile.
Satan, through post-Davidic generations, used all his power to eliminate the lineage that would produce the promised seed, the Messiah. He incited Assyria, Babylon, and the monarch over Daniel as some of the final attempts to prevent God’s promise being fulfilled. But nothing ever worked.
Finally, it was clear to Satan, if not to all mankind, that the Messiah had arrived. Angels had announced it, a virgin (Mary) and a town (Bethlehem) had confirmed it and shepherds and Oriental kings had verified it.
To his credit, Satan never gave up. The Bethlehem massacre, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and inciting religious leaders to pull Him off course were but more failed attempts by the serpent to keep the Son of God’s heel off his head.
He may have felt hopeful when Jesus hung on the cross one Friday, but by Sunday morning the empty tomb would make it clear that the head-bruising promise was fulfilled.
Satan, like a snake that seems impossible to kill, still hasn’t given up. If he couldn’t stop the Messiah, he’ll still try to stop us from trusting Him. That’s his only remaining play. But by the grace of God and His immutable plan, our faith is sure and our enemy is bruised again, over and over. And his ultimate bruising is soon, when he’ll be cast into the Lake of Fire.
Let us keep the faith, my brothers and sisters. Our enemy is defeated by our God and King!
The burgeoning nation of Israelites, just three days into their independence from Egypt, stood at the shore of the Red Sea waiting for Adonai to show up. The thunderous rumble of Egyptian chariot horses made its way across the desert and into the panicked ears of the Hebrews. A cloud of sand dust made for a scary horizon as Moses and his people, their backs against the edge of waters too great for them to cross, frantically cried out to their Deliverer. Pinned between the greatest army in the world and the waters of a vast, deep sea, the Israelites heard no response from God. Whatever could’ve been done, it would not be. It was too late.
Too late or not, Moses raised his staff in the air above the Red Sea as its waves moved to the shore and its undertow took them back out again.
Suddenly, the sea waters began to move in a way no one had ever seen before. A crease-like movement ripped, beginning under Moses’ staff and zipping across the sea, seemingly all the way to the other shore. As the crease moved out, it left in its wake walls of water, as the water rushed to the right and to the left, forming a road of the now dry sea floor between the two walls.
“Behold! I AM has made a way!” Moses shouted as Aaron, Joshua, Hur and the other leaders ran onto the newly made road, the crowd of two million following them, everyone running in an uncanny frantic-yet-joyful manner.
It wasn’t too late after all!
It was, however, too late for Pharaoh’s army. They tried their luck on the road made by Jehovah, but they didn’t make it.
Three young men stood before Nebuchadnezzar. Of all the subjects of Babylon, only these three, Hebrew advisors to the great king, had been found disobedient to the king’s mandate.
“Our God will save us,” they had said, “but even if He does not, we will not bow to anyone but Him.”
The mighty king instructed his men to feed and stoke the furnace’s fire even more, making it seven times hotter than usual. Of course they complied. The king gestured for the three Jewish men to be thrown into the fire. The king’s men took the three men by their arms and ushered them forcefully to the furnace door. The heat was nearly unbearable as they approached the door. One of the servants reached out, opened the door, and fell to his knees. Then he keeled over, gasping for breath, but the air was too dry; it was so hot that it completely dried out his lungs, rendering them unable to expand and take in air. The servant exhaled one final time; he was dead.
As the three Hebrew men watched, knowing they were about to be thrown into the fire whose radiated heat had just killed this man before their eyes, it became apparent that Jehovah wasn’t going to save them. The fire was too hot, their judgment had been passed, their sentence decreed. It was too late.
As the king’s servants threw the three Hebrew men into the burning furnace, three more of the servants fell down and died.
Somehow, though, the furnace didn’t seem hot to the Hebrews. Standing in the flames, they looked at each other in amazement, the three of them each noticing in their peripheral vision a fourth man. Then, they all turned to the man with joyful but puzzled faces. Slowly they realized this was the Son of Man.
“It is never too late when you trust in God.” The Man said.
Maybe you’re in a dire situation and it seems like time is running out. You know it isn’t too late yet, but it soon will be.
Remember, God has a track record of working at what we think is the last minute. He also has a pattern of letting things seem impossible before He works His miracle. As if that isn’t trying enough for us, He often adds the element of silence, not speaking or displaying anything until the time of His providential choosing.
I’m actually in one of those situations now, myself. Let’s do this: let’s save our craziness for when He resolves our trouble; instead of freaking out now, let’s be patient. Then, we’ll completely lose it when He manifests His mighty work.
It’s too late. That may be how you feel, but it never is, especially when we trust Him.
In the movie, Cabrini, which I highly recommend, the heroic nun, Frances Cabrini, an Italian orphanage ministry leader wants to expand her ministry to other lands around the globe. But she has many obstacles in her path. The Catholic Church leaders are men who doubt Mother Cabrini’s abilities and disagree with her vision. As she sits with the pope, trying to convince him to ordain her proposed international ministry, he cites the condition of her health; she is a fragile, slight and a physically weak woman who has a terminal illness and has been given five years to live.
In response to the pope’s pointing out her health limitations, Mother Cabrini retorts, “We can serve our weakness or we can serve our purpose, not both.”
Mother Cabrini continued forward to fulfill her vision, never allowing her weakness to distract from her purpose.
The Apostle Paul was disappointed at the obstacle in his path. A messenger of Satan had been sent to limit his ministry. Paul cried out to God in three probably lengthy attempts. But God’s response wasn’t to remove the messenger or Paul’s obstacles. Rather, God’s response was that His grace would be sufficient for Paul in this challenge, that His strength was made perfect in human weakness. All Paul would need would be the unmerited favor of God. Like Cabrini, Paul’s weakness could not steal the attention his purpose needed.
I became extremely discouraged about two years after suffering a stroke. The losses I had taken seemed more than I could tolerate. The fingers on my left hand would not open. Worse, my music abilities were about ninety percent gone. (I was a music major, studied music one year at the graduate level, spent two years as a Christian songwriter, recording artist and concert musician, and had served in music ministry in various capacities for decades). Now almost all my abilities as a musician had left me.
The worst loss of all to me was the way I perceived my family treating me. They didn’t seem to hold me in the same position of respect they had in the past. Whereas I had been the patriarch the Tew Crew came to for counsel and always showed honor, I was now like a child that needed constant monitoring for instruction and correction. All this left me exasperated. It was too much for me.
At my lowest point, at the precipice of suicide, the Lord spoke to me these words: Gabriel, there’s only one loss you can’t afford.
As I continued to seek God for understanding, I understood that the only unaffordable loss is a Godly attitude. As long as my attitude was Godly, I could manage well with any loss, including the ones I had seen as intolerable.
Unlike Mother Cabrini and Apostle Paul, I allowed my weakness to gain the attention I needed to give to my purpose. But by the counsel of the Holy Spirit, I got on track, putting my losses in their proper place in my thinking and shifting my focus to the purpose to which God has called me. Now, I have a long list of goals I plan to spend my life trying to reach. These things are all about helping people to know and walk with God. My purpose.
I could still be frustrated every day – or dead from loss of hope. Paul could’ve given up, and our Bible, as well as Christian history, and the church, itself, would be far less than what they are. Frances Cabrini could’ve nursed her illness, rather than fulfill her purpose, and orphans wouldn’t have grown up to have families and produce descendants who populate our nation and world today.
Serving our purpose is far better than serving our weakness.
Joseph told his brothers who had badly mistreated him, not to worry. What you meant for evil, he told them, God intended for good.
A couple months ago, I was fired. There were false allegations by someone with whom the company’s owner was personal friends. I was the leader of the facility and the accuser was the top director on my team. She didn’t like my being in charge of her for some reason, and always pushed back when I offered guidance to her. Come to find out, she was talking with the owner, telling him that I was forcing my religion on my team. After addressing this with my boss, she (my boss) indicated she understood that the team member was lying about me. She even told me I was the best facility leader in the company.
Yet, a couple weeks later, she showed up one day and said I was fired; she cited a divided team of directors in my facility as the reason, which wasn’t the case at all, apart from the one aforementioned falsely accusing director.
This was the first time I’d ever been fired and I was humiliated. Since then, I haven’t had success getting a job. It could be because I’ve been forthcoming in my interviews about having been fired; I’ve operated by honesty being the best policy and I think it’s better they hear it from me than from someone else.
I’ve spent many hours seeking God and calling upon Him for help in my employment situation. A few days ago, I felt He was directing me to the Scripture account of King David being forced out of Jerusalem by the uprisen coup and government takeover by his son Absalom.
As David and his loyalists made their way out of the city, Shemei threw stones at David and his processional, shouting curses at him, all of which were false accusations. Finally, one of David’s men requested permission to go over and remove Shimei’s head. But David denied his request, saying, “Let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, ‘curse David.’ Who then shall make him stop?” (2 Samuel 16)
I asked the Lord how this pertained to me, and the answer I perceived was that God was in my firing and the ensuing struggle to find income. Of course, I pleaded that it wasn’t fair and I didn’t deserve it. But the Lord simply wants me to trust Him. Since when have Jesus followers been exempt from unfair treatment? Blessed are you when people persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely (Matthew 5:11).
What I do know is that God is working this situation for my good (Romans 8:28). I don’t understand everything about it, but He often calls us to trust before we understand (Proverbs 3:5).
God’s ways are such a mystery sometimes, and we can often have a lot of questions. Did God cause this? Or did He just allow it? What’s the purpose of it? What’s my role in it?
I’ve learned that most of those questions are unnecessary; they don’t get at the real issue. What we really need to understand is that, whatever happens, God will use it for our good, because we’re His and His love and purpose will always prevail. Everything that happens in our lives God will run through His Purpose Filter, assuring that it aligns with His plan and will.
Finally, though, I do request your prayers, that you would stand with me, asking God to provide His choice job for me at this chapter of my life. Please and thank you, my brothers and sisters.
