sometimes you need to be fireproof

i had the awesome privilege of hearing joel osteen last friday. i'm excited for two reasons. one, i got to hear an amazing word from god the first week of the year. second, i got to see joel! his positivety is an inspiration and not everyone gets it. he's called to fill a void in the christian ghetto and i'm glad he knows who he is and what he's called to do. his ministry touches my life in many ways. but i'm excited to write this post because i got such a rhema word on january 6, 2012 and i want to mark it.

i got several rhema words, nuggets of truth that i believe were timely for starting this new year. i have a word and a vision for this year and i can say without a doubt that god spoke to those things friday night.

1. sometimes we have to stop fighting the storm and let down our sails and let the storm blow us where god wants us to be. that is a hard thing to do - stop fighting. we like to fight. joyce meyers wrote a book about having arms long enough to box with god. we're a scrappy bunch, us christians. we want to fight. joel told the story of paul being shipwrecked and how sometimes fighting the storm or praying it away is the wrong thing to do.

Acts 27:

When a light wind began blowing from the south, the sailors thought they could make it. So they pulled up anchor and sailed close to the shore of Crete.But the weather changed abruptly, and a wind of typhoon strength (called a “northeaster”) burst across the island and blew us out to sea. The sailors couldn’t turn the ship into the wind, so they gave up and let it run before the gale. We sailed along the sheltered side of a small island named Cauda,where with great difficulty we hoisted aboard the lifeboat being towed behind us.Then the sailors bound ropes around the hull of the ship to strengthen it. They were afraid of being driven across to the sandbars of Syrtis off the African coast, so they lowered the sea anchor to slow the ship and were driven before the wind.

 The next day, as gale-force winds continued to batter the ship, the crew began throwing the cargo overboard.The following day they even took some of the ship’s gear and threw it overboard.The terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun and the stars, until at last all hope was gone. No one had eaten for a long time. Finally, Paul called the crew together and said, “Men, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Crete. You would have avoided all this damage and loss. But take courage! None of you will lose your lives, even though the ship will go down and he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul, for you will surely stand trial before Caesar! What’s more, God in his goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you. So take courage! For I believe God. It will be just as he said. But we will be shipwrecked on an island.” it's is natural for us to pray for god to remove the storm or bring it to an end. sometimes god has a greater purpose in us being blown from point at to point b in the storm as he did with paul. an entire nation was saved because god used a storm to put paul exactly where he wanted him to be.

 Acts 28: Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta.The people of the island were very kind to us. It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us. As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand.The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.”But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed.The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn’t harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. 

Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. As it happened, Publius’s father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him. Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed. As a result we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need for the trip. it requires more of us to release control than it does for us to pray for god to remove something from us. we need to accept that god is still god whether it's calm or raging storm. and whatever the enemy means for our harm, god always means it for our good. all things work together for our good.



 2. sometimes being delivered from the storm is not enough. sometimes god needs us to be fireproof because there is a greater need for god to accomplish. that is where shadrach, meshach and abednego come in to play. we all know that the three hebrew boys were faced with bowing to a king who wanted to be god or honoring god and dying in the furnace. they said they knew they served a god who could do the impossible and delivering them from the firey furnace was absolutely nothing. but if not, he was still god. i've often wondered if i've ever had that moment where i accepted that god is more than able to do the impossible and deliver me from everything and anything. but what if he chose not to? would i be okay with that? would i be able to trust him then? and when i say trust him, the question i'm really asking is do i believe god knows better than me? because i wouldn't willingly walk into a fiery furnace. i'd rather have god deliver me from the fire. but what if god received greater glory from me being in the fire?

that was the case with the hebrew boys. god didn't want to deliver them. he wanted to make them fire proof. he wanted to win over a nation of people and not just reinforce the beliefs of three people. god always has a greater purpose for our lives than we can ever begin to conceive. most of the time, we think too small. it's not a terrible critique on us because the bible does say god's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. we'll never measure up. so we just have to trust god to be god. and trust that when he takes us through something it is meant to bring us the ultimate good in the end. not ever thing that happens to us is god's doing. but because he's god, he uses those things to work for our good. he uses the storm to blow us from point a to point b. and point be is precisely where we were meant to be. and for the record, the only thing that burned in the fire were the ropes used to bound the hebrew boys. they walked out free of bondage without the smell of smoke on them. perhaps, by becoming fireproof, god is burning off the chains of bondage that actually hold us back from being who we're meant to be.

 

 3. in general, we dream too small. we think to small. we make god too small.but the bible also says in psalms 81:10: For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt.Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things. i'm learning how to open my mouth. i'm learning how to speak what i want to see. i'm learning to trust god to do the impossible in my life and when i open my mouth to pray. so, i'm opening my mouth wide, and allowing god to fill it with good things. i've never seen that scripture before but i promise you i'll be meditating on it this month as i embark on a fast with my sisters. we're believing for some BIG things.