Backward
Therefore, my dear friends, as
you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my
absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for God is working in you,
giving you the desire and power to do what pleases him. (Phil. 2:12-13)
Every so often
we find ourselves riding the flow of life. Not resisting or thrashing it; just
riding it. A stronger current lifts, channels and carries, daring us to
declare, "I was made to do this." Do you know the flow? Sure you do.
Go back to your youth. What activity lured you off the gray sidewalk of
sameness into an amusement park of sights, sounds and colors? What were you
doing? Assembling a model airplane in the garage? Helping your aunt plant seeds
in the garden? Organizing games for your playground buddies? To this day you
can remember the details of those days: the smell of cement glue, the feel of
moist dirt, the squeals of excited kids. Magical. The only bad moment was the
final moment.
Fast-forward a
few years. Let childhood become adolescence, elementary school become middle
school, and then high school. Reflect on your favorite memories: those
full-flight moments of un-clocked time and unlocked energy. All cylinders
clicking. Again, what were you doing? What energized you? Engaged you? Now, analyze
your best days as a young adult. No upstream flailing. No battling against the
current. During the times you rode the tide, what activities carried you? What
objects did you hold? What topics did you consider? Any common themes? To be
sure, the scenery changes and certain characters drop out of the picture. The
details may alter, but your bent, your passion, what you yearn to do, you keep
doing. And why not? It comes easily to you. Not necessarily without a struggle,
but with less struggle than your peers.
Do you want
direction for the future? Then read your life backward. Job-placement
consultants at People Management
International Inc. have asked over seventy thousand clients this question: What
things have you done in life that you enjoyed doing and believe you did well?
"In every case," writes founder Arthur Miller Jr., "the data
showed that people had invariably reverted to the same pattern of functioning
whenever they had done something they enjoyed doing and did well." Or, to
put it succinctly, our past presents our future. Wait. Can that really be true?
Can childhood interests forecast adult abilities? Can early leanings serve as
first sketches of the final portrait? The biographies of spiritual heroes
suggest so. Start with an Egyptian prince.
As a young man
he excelled in the ways of the court. He mastered the laws of the ancient land.
He studied at the feet of the world's finest astronomers, mathematicians and
lawyers. Fifteen hundred years later he was remembered as "learned in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians, and . . . mighty in words and deeds." (Acts
7:22) What little we know of Moses' upbringing tells us this: he displayed an
affinity for higher learning and an allergy to injustice. Remember his first
adult appearance in Scripture? He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and
killed the Egyptian. The next day Moses saw two Hebrews fighting and intervened
again. This time one of the Hebrews asked, "Who made you a prince and a
judge over us?" (Exod. 2:14) “A prince and a judge.” How accurate is that description?
Turn to the second act.
To avoid arrest,
Moses scampered into the badlands, where he encountered more injustice.
"Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew
water, and they filled the troughs to water their father's flock. Then the
shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and
watered their flock." (Exod. 2:16-17) What drove Moses to protect these
young women? Their beauty? His thirst? Maybe both, or maybe more. Maybe
irrepressible seeds of fairness grew in his soul. When he decked a cruel
Egyptian or scattered chauvinistic shepherds, was he acting out his God-given
bent toward justice? The rest of his life would say so.
Forty years
after he fled Egypt, Moses returned, this time with God's burning-bush blessing
and power. He dismantled Pharaoh and unshackled the Hebrews. Moses “the prince”
escorted his people into a new kingdom. Moses “the judge” framed the Torah and
mid-wifed the Hebrew law. The strengths of his youth unveiled the passions of
his life.
Fast-forward
nearly two millennia and consider another case. Like Moses, this young scholar
displayed a youthful love of the law. He studied at the feet of Jerusalem's
finest teachers. He followed the Torah with razor-sharp precision. He aligned
himself with the Pharisees, who were ardent observers of Scripture. They
defended the law with zeal. And "zeal" is the term he used to
describe his youth. "Zealous?" he wrote. "Yes, in fact, I
harshly persecuted the church." (Phil. 3:6) Young Saul's ardor prompted
his initial appearance in Scripture. And just like Moses, a murder brought him onto
the stage. Angry members of the Jewish council "cast [Stephen] out of the
city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a
young man named Saul." (Acts 7:58)
Call Saul
misguided, misled or even mistaken – but don't call Saul mild. If you scratched
him, he bled commitment. Whether he was Saul, the legalist, or Paul, the
apostle of grace, he couldn't sit still. Cause-driven. Single-minded. Focused
like a hawk on its prey. Peter might tolerate the hypocrisy of the church, but
not Paul. With him, you were either in or out, hot or cold. Whether persecuting
disciples or making them, Paul impacted people. An early strength forecast his
life-long trait. One more example.
Consider the
younger days of Billy Frank, the elder son of a dairy farmer. His dad rousted
him out of bed around two thirty each morning to perform chores. Younger
brother Melvin relished the work, tagging along at his father's side, eager to
take his turn long before he was able. But not Billy Frank. He and Melvin had
the same father, but not the same passion. The minute he finished his chores,
Billy Frank dashed into the hayloft with a copy of Tarzan or maybe Marco Polo.
By the age of fourteen, he had traced The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Missionary stories and accounts of
brave servants in faraway lands fascinated the boy most of all. Later, as a
college student at Florida Bible Institute, he visited with every evangelist
who gave him time. He served their tables, polished their shoes, caddied for
them, carried their luggage, posed to have his picture taken with them, and
wrote home to tell his mother how much he "longed to be like this one or
that one."
Billy Frank bore
one more trademark: energy. His mother remembered, "There was never any
quietness about Billy. . . . I was relieved when he started school." He
was hyperactive before the term existed. Always running, inquiring,
questioning. "He never wears down," his parents told the doctor.
"It's just the way he's built," the doctor assured them.
So, study Billy
Frank's mosaic: fascinated with books and words, intrigued by missionaries and
faraway lands, blessed with boundless energy . . . . What happens with a boy
like that? And what happens when God's Spirit convinces him of sin and
salvation? Young Billy Frank decided to drop his middle name and go by just his
first and last. After all, an evangelist needs to be taken seriously. And
people took Billy Frank Graham very seriously.
What if Graham
had ignored his heart? What if his parents had forced him to stay on the farm?
What if no one had noticed God's pattern in his life? And what if you fail to
notice yours? Remember, God planned and packed you on purpose for his purpose.
"It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from
Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in
helping others." (Eph. 2:10) You are heaven's custom design. God determined
your every detail. "Who made a person's mouth? And who makes someone deaf
. . . ? Or who gives a person sight or blindness? It is I, the LORD."
(Exod. 4:11) And since you are God's idea, you are a good idea. What God said
about Jeremiah, he said about you: "Before I made you in your mother's
womb, I chose you. Before you were born, I set you apart for a special work."
(Jer. 1:5)
God shaped you
according to your special work. How else can you explain yourself? Your ability
to diagnose an engine problem by the noise it makes, or to bake a cake without
a recipe. You knew the Civil War better than your history teacher. How do you
explain such quirks of skill? God knew young Israel would need a code, so he
gave Moses a love for the law. He knew the doctrine of grace would need a fiery
advocate, so he set Paul ablaze. And in your case, he knew what your generation
would need and gave it – He designed you. And his design defines your destiny.
Remember Peter's admonition? "If anyone ministers, let him do it as with
the ability which God supplies." (1 Pet. 4:11)
What have you
always done well? And what have you always loved to do? That last question
trips up a lot of well-meaning folks. “God wouldn't let me do what I like to do
– would he?” According to Paul, he would – “God is working in you to help you want to do and be able to do what pleases him." (Phil. 2:13) Your Designer
couples the "want to" with the "be able to." Desire shares
the driver's seat with ability. "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will
give you the desires of your heart." (Ps. 37:4) Your Father is too
gracious to assign you to a life of misery. See your desires as gifts to use rather
than longings to suppress. So go ahead; reflect on your life. What have you always
done well and loved to do?
Some find that question
too simple. Don't we need to measure something? Aptitude or temperament? We
consult teachers and tea leaves, read manuals and horoscopes. We inventory
spiritual gifts and ancestors. While some of these strategies might aid us, a
simpler answer lies before us. Or perhaps better stated, lies within us. Read
your life backward and check your supplies. Re-relish your moments of success
and satisfaction. For in the merger of the two, you will find your uniqueness.
Grace,
Randy
No comments:
Post a Comment