The Wrong Side of The Right Place

Whoever came up with GPS, I owe them big.  Anytime I'm trying to get to an unknown destination, you can bet I have my navigation app on my phone working to get me there.  I can count on it to be accurate down to the last turn, most of the time.  There are other times, though, that for whatever reason the reliability falters.  It will guide me in the right area and the voice will say something to the effect of, "In 200 feet your destination will be on the left." So I drive the 200 feet and visually survey every building, but the place I'm seeking is nowhere in my line of sight."  A tinge of nervous irritability begins to creep in because now I have no idea if I'm anywhere close to where I should be.  Then my common sense takes over and my brain tells me to redirect my line of sight.  So I simply turn my head towards the right and, voila, I find what I had been looking for.  My navigation had me looking at the wrong side of the right place.  Such a small error. Such close proximity.  Such a simple fix. Still, unless I redirected my focus,  I would have been lost.

 

Life can be like that.  As Christians, our goal is to listen to the voice of the Father and follow his navigation.  God will sometimes lead us directly to where he wants us to be, but he gives us the leeway to figure out how we best serve in that place.  Maybe you are experiencing something like this.  You are working on at a place that you know God has led you to.  Everyday, you work your hind parts off, but your performance is not as effective as it should be.  You keep working with integrity and try to work harder for a better outcome.  Still, nothing.  You feel lost and broken.  Maybe you heard God wrong. Well, you may be in a situation of being on the wrong side of the right place.  It may not be where you are that is the problem. It may be that God intended for you to serve a different purpose in that place.  It could be that you need to seek a different position. Assess your talents/skills. Ask God if he has a different idea for how you should be using those abilities than what you have for yourself.  God may be preparing to reveal a hidden talent that you never had.  He wouldn't have you remain in a position working so hard and not bearing fruit.  No, something needs to be repurposed.  Pray that God would open your eyes to see as he sees.  Let him know that you are willing to get out of your comfort zone and make changes.  Follow his lead so that you can be in the right side of the right place.

 

There are so many ways that we can be at the wrong side of the right place.  In our marriage, we may have to make adjustments.  The way things have been may not necessarily be the way that things are always meant to be.  Maybe you never picked up the kids from school on Fridays.  Maybe the wife never took out the trash.  Well, your normal routine and each persons former responsibilities being worked out the way they always have been just isn't working out.  The wife is always late picking up the kids on Fridays now, because she has a new boss that makes them stay for Friday meetings.  The trash always ends up being torn apart by dogs because now you have to take it out so early to get to your new job on time.  Noone wants to adjust though and your marriage is breaking apart. You both begin to wonder if you are in the wrong place. No, you are in the right place.  You all just have to reposition yourselves and look at things differently. Then do things differently as needed. You'll find your tasks and your marriage to be less of  a strain.

 

In John 21, there were some fisherman out fishing.  They had cast their net on the left side of the boat.  They had been out there a while, but had caught nothing.  Jesus came along and asked them if they had caught anything.  They replied, "No." Jesus didn't tell them to move the boat.   He just told them to cast their net on the other side of the boat.   The fishermen had been fishing on the wrong side of the right place.  They were working hard, but it wasn't productive until they switched positions in the place that they were at.  Once they did, they caught a slew of fish and as heavy as the load was, their net never broke.  That tells me when we are working in the position that God directs us to be in, the payoff is excellent. Nothing is lost and nothing is broken, when we follow God's leading to the right side of the right place.

 

Scripture: Proverbs 16:9

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

 

Prayer:

Lord, help us to understand and acknowledge any time that we are in the wrong side of the right place. May we always willingly make any changes you deem necessary for us to live lives of productivity, potency, and peace.

 

There's No Time...

You have already made up your mind that you are going to do this for the Lord.  He has told you precisely what he wants done and pretty much how to go about it.  You are trying to figure out how to get it done but it just can't seem to be squeezed in.  You think of bypassing Bible study on Friday or skipping your Saturday runs.  No, that won't work.  You consider how you can maneuver your career obligations to make it work or how you can handle your household duties differently to make more time.  No ideas emerge.  This obligation is tugging at your heels while that responsibility is peeking over your shoulder.  Your spouse is pulling your time to the east, while your children are pulling your attention to the west.  When? When? When?

 

Today. The answer is today.  Just do it. Whatever it is that you know God is calling you to do. Take steps toward making it happen.  Little bit by little bit it will get done.  You'll notice when you move in God's behalf, he'll be with you all the way.  Yes, he's requiring more of you.  Yes he still expects that you'll carry on with your other responsibilities with integrity.  And, yes, he will work it out so that you are not overwhelmed and overloaded.  Submit to what God has led you to do and you will be amazed at how time and circumstance will wait for you.  The Bible study group will suddenly decide to meet late on Friday instead of early afternoon.  Events will majestically rearrange in ways that better suits your needs.  People who were vying for your attention will serve you as needed.  God will make it easy for you to follow his directive.  He doesn't want it to be difficult to do what he is asking you to do. 

 

No reward is greater than the contentment your heart and spirit will have after seeing the blessed effects of following his will.  So start today. There's no time...like the present.

A Place For Me

One of my favorite biographies of the Bible is the one of King David. When David was very young God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint David because God had preordained that he would be king. David went through hell and high water for several years after that and it appeared that he would never be king.  David faced battle after battle on his way to the throne.  He was belittled by his brother.  He was challenged by a giant opponent. And after having risked his own life for King Saul, King Saul vehemently sought out David's life out of jealousy. Nonetheless, just as God had established years before, David became king. One of the best.

 

I love this Biblical account because it tells us that it doesn't matter if things aren't going the way it seems they should.  God has established a place for us and after all is said and done, we will without fail arrive at that place. That place will be perfect for us and we will be perfect for that place.

 

Scripture: Psalm 37:34-40

 34Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt you to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, you shall see it. 35I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. 36Yet he passed away, and, see, he was not: yes, I sought him, but he could not be found. 37Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace. 38But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off. 39But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble. 40And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.

 

Prayer:

Dear God, show us the place that you have established for each of us.  May we work, pray, and keep the faith as we each move to get there. May our trust in you always maintain because you are always faithful and true. Amen.

Dirty

Dishes get dirty.  We thoroughly clean them before use and we thoroughly clean them after use.  Still  as it is shelved it collects dust and things from the atmosphere leave it less than desirable for use.  So, when we are in need of the dish again do we discard it.  By no means. We take that thing out and thoroughly wash it down. We know it is still very capable of doing the job it is intended to do.

People get dirty.  Most of us work hard to uphold Godly standards, but not one of us is perfect.  We may be on fire for God for a while, but after some time of dealing with our atmosphere we begin to collect some less than desirable elements in our spirits and become unclean. Thank the Lord that God sees us like we see our dishes.  He knows we have been dirtied up a bit, but he is more than willing to clean us right up.  He knows that we, also, are still very capable of doing the job he intended us to do.

What's a little disheartening is that people don't think like God.  We show more grace to our pots and pans than we do to the people in our lives.  We clean up a dust-ridden serving tray and proceed to put it on display as if it never had cobwebs in it's corner before we pulled it out for Thanksgiving.  But let a person we know get a little dirty and we are ready to forever shun them and God forbid that he should ever use that person again in life. Our minds keep going back to when they were dirty. 

God's ways are not like our ways and his thoughts are not like our thoughts.  God recognizes that none of us are perfect. He knows that if he waited on flawlessness to use one of us, nothing would ever get done.  No, instead God uses his divine sense of order and timing.  He waits on us.  He knows that we will be in error a large part of the time in our lives, but he also knows that we will have times that our hearts are perfect towards him. He knows that our spirits will reconcile with him and want only what he wants...for a time.  He uses that time. He uses that person during that time. 

Consider the greats of the Bible. None of them were without error. They all turned their hearts toward their own desires at some point. David truly loved God. David also led a woman into adultery and committed murder.  Paul had a time in his life when he served God in everything he did.  He also had a time in his life when he was a Christian killer.  These men authored some of the Bible. They wrote words under the inspiration of God that represent God himself. Still, they were not always under that inspiration.  God couldn't use them everyday. God used them during the moments that their hearts were pure towards him.

All of this said to say, when you are like those dirty dishes don't allow that to hinder you from approaching God.  It is times like these that we need God most.  And let us not judge others who are making genuine efforts to cleanse their spirit and serve God with their whole heart.  What sense does it make for the pot to call the kettle black?   At some point, we all have been and will again be dirty dishes.  God's expectation is that we continually help clean one another up.

Scripture:
Ephesians 2:8
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

I John 1:9
 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Prayer:
Lord, thank you for your grace is always sufficient and your mercy is everlasting. Lead us towards being gracious and merciful to one another as you are to us.

Standards for Forced Situations

We all rooted for Cinderella. You remember the story.  A young girl's mother died and her father remarried.  He was a loving father but the stepmother, well, not so much.  Tragedy struck.  The father died too.  Cinderella was left with a stepmother and stepsisters who treated her horribly.  By no fault of her own, Cinderella was stuck in cruel situation. We can all relate to having our lives negatively impacted by situations that are out of our control.  So we read Cinderella's story to the end with great anticipation needing the fairy tale ending for what it speaks to our lives.

 

How do we handle forced situations?  What do we do when we have tried to handle things God's way to the best of our ability, but other people purposely do things to bring us down.  Well, the Bible is full of examples of people dealing with situations like this. In Genesis, we can read the story of Joseph.  Joseph's brothers wanted to kill him. Instead they sold him away.  Joseph was forced to leave his country and family and be treated as a slave by no choice of his own.  Joseph overcame that and became a prominent person.  He was so excellent that he caught the eye of his master's wife.  Joseph refused to dishonor his master by sleeping with his wife.  She accused him of attempting rape and Joseph was sent to prison.  He was forced into another unjust situation that had brought him down. 

 

I could go on and on with other accounts in the Bible much like Joseph's.  I believe there are so many instances of forced situations in the Bible because God knows that we deal with so many instances of it in everyday life.  I am sure we each have a story of our own we could tell about how we were hurt or brought low because of something someone else did to us. What's more is the story we have will probably not be our last.  That being said, it is important that we know how to handle times in our lives like these.  The Bible demonstrates some standards for dealing with forced situations and I want to share what I've noted with you.

 

Standard One: Honor God

No matter what has happened to you or how, we can never allow it to affect our love and reverence for God.  Through all that Joseph went through, Joseph remained connected to and faithful to God.

Standard Two: Respect Authority and Trust God

Sometimes the people who harm us are people in authority over us.  When we are making efforts to rectify the situation, we should maintain a level of respect for those in authority over us.  The Bible says that God sets people in positions of authority.  When they wrong us, it is God's job to get them in line not ours.  We have to trust that God will defend us.  God says he is our defense.  He doesn't lie.  When we take situations into our own hands in a disorderly, disrespectful way, things are guaranteed to get worse. Joseph had every reason to go head to head with his master and his master's wife , but he humbled himself.  He trusted God to fix it.

Standard Three: Keep Going To Sleep and Waking Up

That just means don't stop. Don't give up.  Keep going to sleep and waking up and the day will surely come that you will be vindicated.  Joseph kept going to sleep and waking up. Joseph had been in prison for more than two years and then one day he woke up and the king called for him because he needed him.  Joseph went before the king and gave the king an interpretation of a dream God had sent the king.  The king was so impressed with Joseph that he made him second in charge after him. 

If you are dealing with a forced situation, remember Cinderella.  The position of honor she deserved surely did come to her.   Too much of a fairytale?  Then get in the Word.  God shows us time and again in the Bible that he has a history of bringing about justice for the sake of his own.  Research  David, Daniel, Esther, and Ruth in the Bible.  Notice how they follow the standards for forced situations. Then take note of the outcomes. God brings his people out.


Scripture: Isaiah 54:17    
No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.

Prayer:
Lord vindicate us when we are wronged. May our faith always rest in you.