now

 Christendom is filled with stories of people who did not fit in.  Stories in the Bible of those who were exiled from their homeland or society have become examples of how God used that time in exile to prepare them for some later work or ministry.  But as I read of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, of Amos, of Timothy, even of Nicodemus, I see a pattern of God using people in the place they are in, where they do not fit in, even in exile.  As Christians we hear a lot about the "next of God," the next ministry, the next season of life, the next moving of the Holy Spirit.  Rarely, if ever, do we hear about the "now."

Moses was a high society rich boy, a prince of Egypt who, at 40 years old was exiled to what his circles would consider a wasteland, a desert.  He was out there for 40 years.  He was 80 years old when he finally got around to the "Let My People Go" thing.  What was he doing out there?  He was tending sheep, a job that was a rudimentary idea of what God was planning for him-tending the "flock" of Israel.  And we are taught, even if indirectly, that his time was of no consequence other than preparation for the "next." But what impact may he have had in the middle of his "now" in the wastelands of the Sinai Peninsula?  Might his coming to the Midianites have been a "next" kind of event for them?  Might it have even been an answer to their prayers?  Though not an Israelite people, they worshipped Yaweh.  Moses met his wife out there.  Her father was a priest unto Yaweh among those dwellers of the desert.  What followers of God would not be praying for a Godly man for their daughters?  Today we pray for revival.  Might the followers of God in the desert have been seeking the Lord for a revival of sorts, for their "next" of God?  Then this prince of Egypt shows up out of nowhere...

Forty years of exile, what we have been taught to think of as merely preparation for Moses, yet the whole time he was a blessing to them in their "next," in his "now."  What events were heralded by Moses' showing up there?  Whatever they thought or discerned of him, it was good enough for their leader to give his daughter in marriage to this stranger from the west.  It was definitely significant, impacting, purposeful, not merely a preparation for Moses.  

Growing up in an american pentecostal denomination I observed pastors who were so into the "next of God" that they moved from church to church like women trying on dresses at Bloomingdale's.  The hit 'em and move on mentality was embedded into my psyche, and looking back from 52 years old, I am not pleased with the way I allowed this wrestlessness to invade, envelope, and enforce.  I have never had a tattoo, but I feel like a wrestless chaos has been tattooed on my life.  This has been a stronghold the enemy has used to keep me pinned in a place of uselessness.  There have been many bright spots, when God was doing something thru and beyond me, that has born fruit, even many years later.  But mostly when I was in a "now" place, where God was working, not only could I not recognize it as a "wait, chill, now" season and was always obsessed with the "next," it never felt like it was enough.  I was not enough in my own eyes and it consumed my planning, relationships, even tainted my faith.

The truth is none of us are ever enough to become His idea of us.  We are not even able to dream the right dreams without Him!  But for those in Him, the fact that we are not enough has to be enough.  Our fill, our enough is in Him, in Christ.  Though we may be thought of by others as lacking, ministry partners, coworkers, perhaps even our children, even as we know emphatically that we are not enough, yet, in Him it is enough.  In Him we are enough.  Success?  Yes!  Good!  It is enough.  Failure?  It digs, it hurts, it reveals, it teaches if we let it.  Yes!  It is enough.

When we evaluate our lives, especially in the "now" season, no glitz, no glam, in the middle of the day to day and we feel that we are not enough on this plain, in our eyes, we are in His!  You feel like you should be farther along in your career, ministry, what you are experiencing right now is so far from your plan of where you should be and what you should be doing, and you can't see the "next..."  Rest in the "now."  Just keep at it, work your job, cultivate relationships, keep at your ministry, outreach, whatever it is, just keep doing it because right now is the time you are being blessing to folks, you may be in the middle of being an answer to prayer for someone right in the boring, seemingly dead-end "NOW," even if you cannot see it!  Rest in the "NOW!"  Continue in the "NOW!"

Soon you will find your feelings have changed.  You will find your definition of success has changed.  You will find that you have changed and that you have been moving in the "next" of God and did not realize it.  The "next" happens when the "now" is fulfilled.  The kicker is we think we are allowed to make that call.  Certainly, we are free to subvert what God is doing, and He will just bring us around to another "now."

People who learned the "now" of God:  Enoch, Abel, Noah, Job, Abraham, Samuel, Esther, Ruth, David, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, Amos, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, Steven, Paul, etc.

SELAH.  It means think about it.