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Grace takes you from where you are to where God wants you to be.
It is a pleasurable pilgrimage, in His leadership.
King David acknowledges it in his prayer of thanksgiving and praise unto God, as he neared the end of his life – ‘Yours O Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as Head over all. Both riches and honor come from you and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and give strength to all. [1 Chronicles 29:11,12]
How does God lead you ?
He is exalted as Head over all, and it is in this position that He leads and guides you. He becomes your God who is the good Shepherd who leads you in love and compassion, demanding from you a response in love and submission. He deals wondrously with you and satisfies you even in the dry seasons of your life. The word of God describes how God found Jacob, who is a type of you and I today, to deal with him and guide him.
In a desert land:
God found him in a desert land. In a howling wilderness waste. [Deuteronomy 32:10]
God comes to you where ever you are in life right now. He finds you even in your times of wilderness when you are feeling isolated, forsaken and abandoned. And He does not leave you there, but begins to do a good work in you.
He cares for you and guards you:
He shielded him, cared for him. Guarded him as the apple of His eye. [Deuteronomy 32:10] And then God begins to deal with you, even as He did with Jacob, His chosen one.
As an eagle stirs up its nest”
As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, As it spreads its wings, takes them up, And bears them aloft on its pinions, The Lord alone guided him, No foreign god was with him. [Deuteronomy 32:11,12] Sometimes in life, you may find your well cushioned and comfortable living rocked and disturbed by seemingly negative and painful happenings. But the verse above beautifully gives the divine perspective to it.
That it may spread its wings to fly and soar:
The comfortable nest is disturbed so that the eaglet will discover that it is designed to spread its wings and fly, and not spend all its life in the nest. The nest is stirred up, but the mother eagle keeps a watchful eye to swiftly swoop in when necessary, to carry the eaglet aloft in its own wings. It will not let it fall to the ground.
And the eagle patiently persists without giving up, as the eaglet develops its wings little by little. And one day the eagle sees its young one spreading its wings and flying alongside it, soaring majestically in the skies, a wondrous sight to behold.
It is what God wants to happen in you too. He does not want you to somehow manage, adjust, and spend all your life in your limited comfort zone. He wants you to mount up on wings and fly, as you discover and develop into what He has designed you to be, that you may reach the destination that He has already prepared for you.
Not to discourage but to develop you:
What seems to be a troubling lack or discomfort that disturbs your peaceful routine becomes in the hands of the Maker, something that develops you in your endeavors, that you may progress to reach your divine destination.
Difficult circumstances:
* When the brook dried up – in the life of Elijah
* When the manna ceased – in the life of the Israelites
* When the cup bearer forgot –in the life of Joseph
Three very different, but difficult circumstances – God’s leadership in it though, made the times of crisis a place of development in the lives of the people concerned.
In your life when discomfort comes, there is always a choice before you, you can either get discouraged or discover something new by the grace of the Almighty God, and in His leadership progress towards something that is greater.
And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. [1 kings 17:7]
How can the brook go dry when God was involved in directing Elijah to it ?
It could be the question in your heart. But studying further will reveal to you God’s higher purposes in it.
Fed regularly by ravens in a time of drought, Elijah was in a place of comfort. And God at one point stirred up his nest that he would discover something new as his focus was made to shift to the Lord, instead of the provision that came through His hand. For the wondrous truth is that, the brook may dry up, but in the Lord, in His Spirit within you, there is a spring of life giving water that will never go dry. God was taking Elijah on a path of development. It is what He desires to do in your life too, to take you to a place that is higher and more blessed.
From a place of just receiving, to giving:
God wants a shift to happen in you, in your prayer life, which will see your needs met, so that the needs of others may be met through you. He wants to raise you higher, to make you a channel. And when you pass on to others what you receive from God, you will always remain full.
How does this shift happen ?
Elijah focusing on the brook that had gone dry would not have brought any change. In your discomfort and lack, focusing on it will only lead you to a place of despair and hopelessness. For only the word of God can bring change.
The word came to Elijah:
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, ‘Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you’. [1 kings 17:8,9]
Only the word of God can change your world. And it will do much more than that. It will go on to change the world of others through you.
The word of the Lord came to Elijah, instructing him to go to the widow at Zarephath, to a seemingly worse situation. But through him God brought life and provision to the widow and her son and later on to her whole household.
The man with the word can change the world of others. And as the widow did as she was asked, to give out of the little that she had, she saw her lack dispelled. Her supply of flour never ran dry.
Focus on what you need – the word of God:
Goodness and mercy will follow you, as you focus on the word of God, taking your eyes off whatever lack that you may be experiencing. And when God intervenes in your misfortune, He wants you to intervene in the lives of others, to bring help and comfort.
You are blessed to be a blessing
In your times of discomfort, when the brook dries up, so to speak, God develops you –to take you from receiving to giving.
The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year. [Joshua 5:12]
Manna to the Israelites was the temporary and limited provision of the Lord in the wilderness. And all they had to do was collect it. But on entering the promised land, the manna ceased, for God was bringing them to a new and higher dimension from just enough to having more than enough, an increased harvest that would meet other people’s needs too.
They ate the fruit and manna stopped:
Why did it have to happen in this manner ?
You can so easily get used to the methods of God, and instead of looking at Him focus just on the manifestations of His power. But God was beginning something new in the lives of the Israelites. They ate the fruit of the land, fruit that had seed in it. And as they sowed the seed there was increase and multiplication, an abundant harvest.
God was taking them from a place of collecting a provision that was just enough, to a place of cultivating crops of a large variety, and increasing yield. It was the development that God was bringing in them, through the apparent discomfort of manna that ceased.
From being just collectors, God made them cultivators. And it is what God wants to develop in you too. Therefore, when discomfort comes in your life, do not be discouraged, for God is saying to you, ‘I am doing something new in your life to develop you, take you higher’.
Spending time in the word of God
You become a cultivator of God’s word when you go beyond just listening to messages, to sit at the Lord’s feet doing your own individual study of the word. You will then be blessed and also have a surplus, an overflow that you will be able to pass on to others to be a blessing in their lives. God wants it to happen in all areas of your life.
In your finances
Fruit that you can eat, a supply to satisfy you comes from God. He does not want you to starve yourself. But He then desires that you save some and sow some, to see an increase come, that you may have a surplus to meet the needs of others. And ultimately, in your discomfort and turbulence God wants to develop you in a way that you never imagined, as He leads you to trust and rest in Him – the Source of it all.
Facing death and petrified, when in the prison together with Joseph, the cup bearer had a dream that was prophetically interpreted by Joseph. And it came true in his miraculous release. Yet the chief cup bearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. [Genesis 40:23]
It is something that happens so often in life, when the people whom you have helped, forget you in your time of need. It is why the word of God says “It is better to trust in God” than to put your confidence in man. [Psalms 118:8]
This is the truth that God wants to develop in you, a shifting of focus to the true source, from which everything else comes. For invariably when you are going through a problem, you tend to look at the physical and the tangible, which is your own self, or at other people for help in overcoming it.
Joseph’s initial words to the cup-bearer give a window to it – But remember me when it is well with you. Please do me the kindness to make mention of me to the pharaoh, and so get me out of the place. [Genesis 40:14] But it is better to trust in God, He comes first. And you trust God, to make the one on whom you put your trust, to come through for you in your time of crisis, to be faithful to you. Joseph’s initial position was one of expecting man to do what only God can do. And for two long years, Joseph was refined and developed by the word of God, that he may be sustained in the place of his coming elevation that God had already prepared. For, God never forgets you. And He is a God of constant love and timely intervention. After two years –
The cup bearer remembered –
He remembered in remorse. Then the cup bearer said to the pharaoh, ‘I remember my fault today’. [Genesis 40:9] And then the swift turn around came for God can do in no time, what takes man his whole life to do.
The turnaround – the invitation:
Then the pharaoh sent for Joseph and he was hurriedly brought out of the dungeon. [Genesis 41:14] And it makes it all worth the while, the time of pain and discomfort, when you experience what it ultimately brings about in you. Yet again Joseph’s first words give a window to it – revealing the development that had taken place within him.
‘Not I, but God’
Joseph answered pharaoh, ‘It is not I; God will give pharaoh a favorable answer’. [Genesis 40:16] He knew now, who his source was. And God lifted him up, blessed him and made him a channel of blessing in the saving of many people.
Discover what is new
Therefore in your times of discomfort, when your nest is stirred up, do not be discouraged, but discover what is new. For God is developing you, taking you from a place of receiving to giving, your needs met that you may meet the needs of others. Developed to cultivate the word of God, in order that an abundant harvest may come one that enriches many people.
Developed, as you are led by the Father and led by the Spirit to the truth of the Cross of Calvary, that you can now declare I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. [Galatians 2:20]
In the name of Christ Jesus, Amen.
