Are We There Yet?

01/29/2005

Don’t we all ask that question at sometime in our lives? Don’t children love this question when the journey has been long, in their eyes, and they’re just ready to get out of the car and run free? Don’t you think the Israelites were asking that question of God while they wandered around in the wilderness for forty years? How would we react if God sent us out on an eleven-day journey and we still hadn’t arrived after 39 years? I imagine we’d all be pretty frustrated.

In my prayer time this morning, I was once again pouring out my heart to God. He knows my personality, He knows everything about me, and He knows that when I start a project I want to see it completed as quickly as possible. For me, that’s the satisfaction—being able to stand back and take a look at it when it is done. I’m not a procrastinator, when I set my mind on something, I need to get at it and work on it until I’m finished--even when it comes to something as unpleasant as cleaning house. Jim learned years ago, when I have a rag in one hand and Windex in the other, stay out of my way!! I’m on a mission! Pretty silly, huh? But it is who I am. I don’t know if it’s the way God created me, or the way my mother trained me, but it is what it is.

Well, we’re in the middle of a project right now, and I’m not real fond of the “middle.” The middle takes lots of extra prayer for me…waiting is not my forte. How many of us would say it is? When we’re in the middle, we’ve seen the excitement of the beginning, but we haven’t yet experienced the satisfaction of the end…and yet God says, “Blessed are those who wait for him to help them.” (Isaiah 30:18 NLT)  I’m not real good at that either! I’m like the two year old who wants to do it all by them self…even if they don’t have a clue as to their ability to get it done.

With this project going on right now, I might as well be a two year old, because I don’t have the ability to get it done. In fact, I’ve pretty much finished with what I can do for now. I have written the words to most of the songs, but I am not singing them and I am not playing them. I will be speaking a few of them, but that is small potatoes compared to the rest that needs to be done to complete this. My part comes later, when we take these songs and this story to the brokenhearted and offer what God has given us to them.

And so I pray…and I do what I can…and I pray…and I do what I can…and I ask God what more can I do? And He says, “Wait on me.” And so I pray some more… Is it stretching me? You bet it is! Is it a bit uncomfortable! Absolutely! I see the mountain and I want to climb it, but then I am reminded that even when I get to the top, there will be another mountain behind it because what God asks us to do on this earth is never-ending. Each time we are taken to a new place by Him, new doors are then opened that lead to new adventures and new challenges and we continue on this journey our whole lives until He calls us home.

Which leaves us where? In the MIDDLE our entire lives! Right where most of us don’t really want to be! So we start to move forward and we start to get ahead of God and then we wonder where He went? “And you have brought this on yourselves by rebelling against the Lord your God when he wanted to lead you and show you the way!” (Jer. 2:17 NLT)

Now, this is talking about the “Results of Israel’s Sin” but sin is sin. And running ahead of God is sin…pretty harsh, isn’t it? I think so, but I also believe it! God has a perfect plan; He directs the steps of the godly. If we are not following His steps, then we are not being very godly! We are being very humanly, and in that, we are listening to the wrong person, we are listening to the enemy, not to God!

But how can we hear God when we are right in the middle of something and the attacks are coming! The enemy is screaming at us…YOU BETTER GET MOVING…but God says, “Only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt.’” (Isaiah 30:15-16 NLT)

I had to ask God after reading this, “What is my Egypt, Lord?” He said, “Yourself.” I knew He was right. I want to help myself most times--I want to depend on myself to get things done. I don’t want to wait on anyone, not on anything, not even on God! But that’s not how it works in God’s world. He is in charge, He directs the steps, we are to follow Him each day and wait…and pray!

Destruction is certain for those who look to Egypt for help,
trusting their cavalry and chariots instead of looking to the
Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 31:1 (NLT)

It seems our whole lives we are taught to fend for ourselves. We are taught to grow up, become independent and only ask for help when it is absolutely necessary or we might seem like a bother to those around us. We are taught to save our money, store it away for a rainy day, invest in a home for security, and when our golden years come, retire and do what pleases us until God takes us home. As we grow older we seem to trust less because we have been hurt too many times in life--we’re not so willing to love the unlovely and we become more stubborn because we know more and we aren’t quite so open to accepting anyone else’s opinion on things. We have our own!

So most things that we have been taught become deeply ingrained in us as the years go by. It’s the way it is, it’s the way it will always be, and we accept it. I think that’s why we have so much fighting in our churches, among our own people. We are set in our ways, we bring in our own opinions and we are very unwilling to listen to anything else. But what if we really believed God’s Word at face value? What are we to do with everything we have been taught about the way the world works when we look at the way God sees the world working in His Word?

Most of us want to live too much of our lives depending on human reasoning and logic, as talked about in Galatians 1:11 (NLT). But Paul says the Good News of salvation, which he preached was not based on mere human reasoning or logic. It came as “a direct revelation from Jesus Christ himself.” Did it make sense to the world? Not to those who did not believe it! To unbelievers it is foolishness! As Paul continued on talking about his past, he admitted that he tried as hard as possible to “follow all the old traditions of my religion.”

That’s what we do! We try to follow all the old traditions and we forget when we become children of God, we get to start over again with a new set of rules! Not the rules of our parents, and the rules of their parents, but God’s rules. And what do God’s rules say? They say, love God and love people! They say don’t store away in earthly barns, let your treasure be in heaven. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Forgive those who have hurt you. Don’t judge others. Keep on asking, keep on looking and keep on knocking! And for those of us who grew up hearing this--yes the “Golden Rule” is in the Bible! Matthew 7:12 (NLT) “Do for others what you would like them to do for you.”

We get to start over. Toss out the old rules, and bring in the new! And then live by them!! Don’t go back! Paul says, “I make myself guilty if I rebuild the old system I already tore down. For when I tried to keep the law, I realized I could never earn God’s approval. So I died to the law so that I might live for God.” (Galatians 2:18-19 NLT)

It’s hard though, isn’t it? It’s hard to die to all the old laws in our lives, the way we have always heard things should be, and then move on into the new life that Jesus Christ has given us! It just doesn’t seem to make sense to our human nature! But the truth is, it doesn’t and it never will because we are a new creation! God is working something new in us, from the inside out!! We literally have to free-fall into God’s arms, and TRUST HIM!

Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian
and teacher to lead us until Christ came. So now, through
faith in Christ, we are made right with God. But now that
faith in Christ has come, we no longer need the law as
our guardian.
Galatians 3:24-24 (NLT)

For some of us, everything we have ever learned, been taught and lived by is being thrown out the window! If we were not raised in a home where God was King, where He was our Provider, where our trust was in Him alone, we were raised under the old law. The law of be good, and that will get you into heaven. Of save your money because that is where your security is. Of love and trust only as long as you are loved by others and treated fairly by those you meet. The list could go on, but you get the idea. Oh, and if only for me personally, “Don’t wait, because if you don’t do it, nobody else will.”

Ahhhhh! This is where it starts to get confusing, because the more I read of God’s Word, the more it contradicts everything in my life that I have lived by. If I don’t store away for my old age…what will become of me? If I love those who hurt me, won’t I be a doormat for them? If I wait until God moves…what if He never does?! Even Abraham had trouble with this one, which resulted in Ishmael being born before Isaac.

The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave-wife
and one from his freeborn wife. The son of the slave-wife was born in
a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise. But
the son of the freeborn wife was born as God’s own fulfillment of his promise.
Galatians 4:22-23 (NLT)

What a great example of not waiting on God, but moving ahead because God just seems to be taking much too long when we are waiting for Him to move ahead with the plans He has shown us. But then what happens because of this?

And we who are born of the Holy Spirit are persecuted by
those who want us to keep the law, just as Isaac, the child of
promise, was persecuted by Ishmael, the son of the slave-wife.
Galatians 4:29 (NLT)

We stick our neck out there when we follow the Holy Spirit and risk persecution by those still trapped in slavery--those still trying to follow the old law because the old law is familiar and so comfortable. It’s what we’ve grown up with, why change now?

Why? Because God has a much better plan for all those who will believe in His Son. And may I add, it includes the best retirement plan ever heard of! Eternity with our Father, all our needs provided for and no burial cost will be required!

This is not to say that we should live a life of reckless abandon! God gives us His wisdom for a reason, and we should use it. In Romans 13:2, God says, “…those who refuse to obey the laws of the land are refusing to obey God…” But what we should use even more than that is God’s leading and guidance through each day.  There is no danger in that! God is not going to call us to break laws or to harm people! He only wants what is best for us and to follow what His Word says above everything else. We can never go wrong when the One who is in control of the entire universe tells us which way to turn! Our human reasoning and logic is babyish garble compared to the leading of His Holy Spirit!

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let
God transform you into a new person by changing the way
you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do,
and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect
his will really is.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)

Transformation is not easy…it’s a long, drawn out process most times. Like a butterfly waiting in a cocoon--there’s lots going on that the eye cannot see. When the butterfly is ready to fly free, it has a long hard struggle to break free of the shell it has been living in before it can soar off into the new life it has waiting for it. From crawling on the ground to soaring, doesn’t happen over night!

Most of us seem to be crawling around on the ground, seeing the world only from that perspective. God wants us to soar! He wants us to bury ourselves in His Word, in prayer, and stay there until we are ready to break free from the shell we live in and soar above the laws we have always lived by. It won’t happen over night, and even when we start to soar, there will always be new levels to attain. We are not butterflies, we are human beings created in God’s image. He has even greater plans for us! In Jeremiah one, we are reminded that God knew us before we were ever formed in our mother’s womb. Before the “cocoon” even existed, God knew we would be here on this day, doing whatever it is we are doing…think how long God has waited for us to be obedient to His call!!

While God is working there are times of waiting. That’s just the way it is. There’s no sense in fighting it, and there’s really no sense in running ahead of where God has us! We are called to wait, to listen, and then to move when told to. When the enemy starts screaming, “Aren’t you there yet?” we need to be still and know that God is God. And then when God calls us to move forward, we are to go at God’s Speed…arriving where we’re supposed to be at just the perfect timing for what God has planned in our lives.

You see it’s very important to also move at the right time. To not be fearful and shrink back, missing that next step. God is directing the steps, so let’s not fear them. He will never leave us alone to do what He is calling us to do! As we take each step of faith, it will lead to the next and the next and the next…and we will continue to grow and learn and watch God’s miracles unfold in our lives.

So when the enemy is screaming, “Aren’t you there yet?” we need to always remember Who is in control, Who’s driving us Home, and listen. Look up to our Father in the “front seat” and depend on Him to get us there safely. He knows the way, and if He’s like Jim with his GPS unit sitting up on the dash, He knows the exact time of our arrival. Jim’s is calculated out in a little instrument that knows our speed, our distance and the current time. That’s the human way of figuring out our arrival time. God’s way is so much greater than that. He’s already seen our arrival, He knows exactly when we get there and He knows what happens on the way. How can we not trust in the All-Knowing, All-Seeing God of the Universe? Let’s stop trusting human reasoning and logic, and let’s trust the One in Control of all things—and stop stressing over, “Are we there yet?”

Wanting to rest in the back seat,

Diane