One of my friends that I admire the most, is my friend Pastor Gerard who must have a million and one great memories of ministering in South Africa. He’s there so much in fact I can’t wait for him to finally inform us all that he’s relocating! This last time he traveled there, he had the tremendous opportunity of reaching some lost young people and their parents, and train youth leaders to reach young people as well. His schedule was extremely intense, but their Field Director and Pastor Gerard managed to sneak away for a couple of hours in a wild game park. And the Lord of all those African creatures was really good to them, because He allowed them to see zebras and rhinos and hippos, and many more of God's African best, and none of which desired to eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner or a midnight snack!
However, his most unforgettable moment began when their driver said, "Whoa, that's fresh! Keep your eyes open for an elephant." Her "that's fresh", referred to a broken branch she saw in the middle of the little road they were on. Now, the staff member he was with as well as himself were a little skeptical, but not for long. As they rounded a bend, There He Was - a big old elephant lumbering down the road ahead of them! They followed behind him for a while and then they watched with ringside seats as he stepped off into a little pond, watered himself and sprayed himself. Pastor Gerard said it was amazing!
But what caught my attention, as well as watered my faith so it could grow even more, was the part about when his driver saw just a LITTLE sign (a broken branch), and knew that something really BIG was coming up!
Now, God may very well be doing something Big on the trail just ahead of you. Oh, you can't see it yet, but it's important to be able to see even the little signs of "God's something big" on the way. That's part of what faith is all about.
Hebrews 11:1, “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead.” (TLB). The Amplified Bible says it like this: “Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality – faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].” (AMP)
Pastor Gerard’s driver saw a little broken branch as evidence that a Big elephant was about to appear. Imagine if we walked by faith like that, what would we believe God for, ask God for, and expect with confidence that God is able to do?! Just a little sign showing that something Big was about to make a grand appearance, and all they had to do was keep looking for it!
Which brings us to Elijah. Elijah had prayed that God would show His power in Israel by sending a three-year drought. In 1 Kings 18, beginning in verse 42, we see why the Bible presents him as a man whose prayer was "powerful and effective" (James 5:16-18, in the Message Bible reads, “Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t – not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.” MSG ).
So, now he's praying for the drought to end. The Bible says, "Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 'Go and look toward the sea,' he told his servant. And he went up and looked. 'There is nothing there,' he said. Seven times Elijah said, 'Go back.' The seventh time the servant reported, 'A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea.' So Elijah said, 'Go and tell Ahab (the king), 'Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.'" It hadn't rained for three and a half years, but Elijah saw that little cloud and he said, "It's coming!"
Elijah kind of reminds me of Pastor Gerard’s guide and driver there in that African game park. His eyes are wide open, looking for and expecting some early sign of the major work God was about to do. Pastor Gerard saw a branch, but the one with the trained eye said, "Get ready for an elephant." Elijah's servant saw a little cloud, and Elijah, with his trained eye for God at work, said, "Get ready for a deluge." The word ‘deluge’ is defined as ‘a severe flood or very heavy fall of rain; a great quantity of something arriving at the same time; to overwhelm. All of your sadness will have to flee as you’ll have to make way for your unspeakable joy to arrive! Your Deluge of Blessings Are On the Way!
But you have to have faith! You have to see beyond what you see! You have to look for the little sign, before you see the Big showing! Which means you’ll have to look past the bank accounts, bills, tuition, mortgage, loans, car insurance, debt, health crisis, marriage and parental crisis, struggling church, loneliness, hurt, despair, rejection, abandonment…you can’t focus on that stuff because if you do, you’ll miss seeing your little sign of something Big! So you’ll also have to get out of your own feelings. Don’t allow your emotions to cause you to have a distorted view of the great things God is about to make happen just for you!
Shift your focus from anger, depression, rage, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, and the need to seek revenge. All of those things act as a cataract and glaucoma, blocking and blinding you from seeing the little signs of something Big in your future!
Habakkuk 2:2-3, “And then God answered: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming – it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time.” (MSG)
That’s your encouragement for today, Walk By Faith, Wait and Watch! It will happen, right on time! The problem for us though occurs when we’ve been walking by faith for so long that the soles of our faith feet are worn; we’ve waited so long, we’re trying to hold on to that last grain of sand in the hourglass before it falls denoting 'time's up'; and we’ve watched so long, that our eyes need a 3 month supply of Visine, they’re so red and tired! And still even with all of that, I say to you today, continue to Walk, Wait and Watch!
You Are Not Giving Up! Keep Your Vision in View in the Spirit No Matter What You See in the Natural That’s Attempting to Block You! What’s coming is so much better than what’s been!
Which is why I encourage you to open your eyes today for the wonderful things God is already doing around you - the little cloud that will enlarge your faith to expect the Big rain, the little buds that will fuel your faith to expect the glory of spring. This winter will end…and soon...no matter what the weather forecast predicts! Winter can only hold on but so long, like it or not, the season will change, and it will have to let go! You see, March 20th, is officially Spring. But if you look at the weather reports, we may very well have Snow in Spring. But does that stop Spring from appearing on the calendar as the Next New Season?
Absolutely Not! And there’s nothing going on in your life that can hinder the change of seasons that God is about to bring about just for you! God can move in your life even with the eviction notice, foreclosure notice and layoff looming overhead! He can never be hindered by the elements He created and controls. So, even when it looks like nothing is happening, remember, God is Still at Work! He’s orchestrating things in your favor, so you have nothing to fear!
A lot of times we are unnecessarily discouraged and disheartened because we don't see the tracks of God that are all over our day. A good friend of mine likes to call them "God sightings". It may not be very large or not very dramatic, but there's God again, working in your life. Your marriage isn’t perfect, but you’re still married; your children have gone astray, but they were trained in the ways of God, and will find their way back eventually; your job hasn’t granted you the promotion and increase yet, but you’re still employed; your car isn’t brand new, but it gets you from A-Z and back, and during a cold season like this, there are quite a bit of people jealous of your little hunk-a-junk; you may not be healed yet, but neither are you dead yet! These are your little “God sightings”, you just have to look for them, and you’ll see! In fact, the more you look for them, the more you see of them!
Blessings
J.P. Olson
No comments:
Post a Comment