Topic: Be Ready To Be Interrupted [Thursday August 17, 2017]
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd risks and lays down His [own] life for the sheep. – John 10:11
The more I study the men and women in the Bible whom we consider to be “great,” the more I see that they all made huge sacrifices and there was nothing convenient about what God asked them to do.
Abraham had to leave his country, his relatives, and his home and go to a place God would not even tell him about until he went there. Joseph saved a nation from starvation, but not before he was violently removed from his comfortable home and put in an inconvenient place for many years. Esther saved the Jews from destruction, but God certainly interrupted her plan in order for her to do so.
The list of individuals who entered into sacrificial obedience could go on and on. The Bible calls them people “of whom the world was not worthy” (see Hebrews 11:38). These people we read about were inconvenienced so that someone else’s life could be easier. Jesus died so we could have life and have it abundantly. Soldiers die so that civilians can remain safe at home. Fathers go to work so their families can have nice lives, and mothers go through the pain of childbirth to bring another life into the world. It seems quite obvious that someone usually has to experience pain or inconvenience for anyone to gain anything.
If you make the decision that you don’t mind inconvenience or interruption, then God can use you. You can make a difference in the world. But if you remain addicted to your own comfort, God will have to pass you by for someone who is more willing to endure the hard things in life in order to do God’s will.
Trust in Him: Think about a situation in which God is asking you to do some things you would rather not do—stay in a situation, leave a situation, spend time with someone you don’t get along with . . . Are you willing to trust the “interruption” from God in order to do His will?
