FITTING OUT THE SHIP

"Fitting out" a ship means putting in everything a ship needs, both to carry passengers and to power the vessel." Stephanie Sabol  

The phrase "fitting out the ship" has a spiritual application. All of the work God does for and within you, is meant to provide you with everything you need, both to carry others and to power you, a vessel for the Holy Spirit. For waters of the world are turbulent, and only a skilled navigator and fitted ship can chart them.

The process through which God prepares, stocks, and powers you is less affectionately known as discipline. Discipline is something we naturally resist. Discipline forces us to bend against our will, decide against our preferences, and push beyond our limits. During its process, discipline feels more like punishment than benefit. Yet discipline, strenuous and unpleasant though it is, is a process for which we should be grateful; Hebrews 12:5-6; Proverbs 3:11-12 explain:

"... do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every child whom he receives."

If we are to be "fitted out" or, disciplined, by God, we should understand how, why and the way to endure (perhaps even appreciate) the process. 

THE SHIP

Every person is a vessel; mind and limbs and entire body work to exert an individual's will in the world. The same is true for a child of God, but there is an emphatic tweak: our mind and limbs and entire body work to exert God's will in the world. We abandon our own, or at least, we try to as, throughout our lives, we submit further to His will. We do so because we trust His above our own. We trust His foresight, we have confidence in His power, and we believe in His purposes over anyone else's. 

But if we are truly going to be vessels of the Holy spirit, ships navigating the waters of the world according to His purposes, we need to be built spiritually robust. Just as it would be unpleasant to be hammered, carved and sanded, so can it be unpleasant to be lectured, thwarted, or made to fail.

If God did not love us, He would leave us to our own devices. The end of humanity would be a quick and cruel process done to itself. But He does love us, very much, and if He is to yield the "peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 11:11)" within us we have to be disciplined. You will recognize discipline by this taste: humble pie. You will recognize discipline by this emotion: shame. You will recognize discipline by this outcome: failure.

None of us like to relive the moments when we were humbled, ashamed, or defeated. But God exploits those moments. He makes full use of them, using our pain and frustration as a site to be surveyed, analyzed, dug into. In such emotionally intense, raw states it is easiest to see the connections between cause and effect, action and reaction and most of all: the futility of living for selfish purposes. 

Once we learn how the wrong motivations lead to the wrong decisions and how the wrong decisions lead to the wrong outcomes, it is easier to release our selfish purposes. And sometimes, when we actually do receive the outcome we thought we wanted, we realize it is not what we should have wanted at all. We realize that it does not provide the joy or even contentedness we thought it would. When that happens, it's easier to grab onto the truth that "your Father knows what you need" (Matthew 6:8)" and that maybe you really don't.

That release (of selfish purposes) and that grab (onto truth) are crucial to the ships form, to your form. They are the difference between sinking and staying afloat. 

THE WATERS

In scripture, tribulation is often symbolized by water:

• Psalm 69:1-2 Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
• Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
• Lamentations 3:54 the waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to perish.
• Psalm 18:16-17 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

Your relationship with God, your willingness to submit to His discipline, prepares you for the plight of those deep and turbulent waters. If we are to be vessels of the Holy spirit, it simply will not due for us to give up, give in, get angry, or go astray. But without practice, we will give up. Without the process of building strength, you will give in. Without being singed by the flames of anger, we will burn from anger. Without the proper mooring to the philosophy of God, we will go astray.

We have to experience those things in order to extract their essential oils, the elements of them that make us strong and wise in faith, selfless in body and soul. But it requires discipline to utilize those moments; because when you are broken or ashamed, you are reluctant to submit yourself to constructive criticism or to consider consequence a valuable lesson. Because although water gives us life, we are not exactly cognizant or grateful for that as it rushes toward us or threatens to rise above our heads.

You are a ship because you are in the waters; and if you are a ship in the waters, you need to be fitted out. Otherwise, your tribulation will sink you. In character. In spirit. In life. No matter who you are, more than once in your life a wave will go over your head and send you crashing down. That moment will either be an end or a beginning: your demise, or your first day of training.

THE CARGO

It is through our trials that we become stocked with the cargo we need in order to be properly fitted out. Through trials, God provides opportunity to build spiritual muscle, the true strength that is: patience and endurance, courage, character and hope. The most important cargo a ship could carry; the products that persevere us through the waters.

Trials: some are different, many are the same, though caused by different circumstances for each individual. Our trials are the things we have to either cope with or surrender to, the happen within us: our insecurities, our losses, loneliness, sadness and fear. Our temper our greed, our temptation, pride and anxiety. But the weariness, the fainthearted-ness they birth within us, are conquerable.

The loneliness and loss teach us to value people not things, to nourish them and host them well when they come; to build attentive and empathetic relationships. The fear gives us opportunity to learn what we care about enough to choose courage. The sadness encourages us to explore for reprieve from sorrow. The anxiety causes us to inquire of peace and its attainability. The temptation teaches us that we are leashed until we deny it enough to set ourselves free. The insecurity causes us to question the context of our culture and to make corrections. All of those things could snuff us out, but instead let them light a fire. Disciplining ourselves to re-purpose our trial's power in our lives helps us to build the cargo we need to survive any storm that brews in the waters. 

We conquer those sea beasts by remembering that as a child of God, there is hope. There is breakthrough. There is purpose. We conquer our trials by remembering that endings are beginnings, if we pray them to be. And that is the most precious cargo of all: faith. 

We are ships in the sea, in the world, but in heaven we are God's cargo and He protects us with His life. He prepares us with every skill and piece of wisdom He has. We are made able navigate the choppy waters because we have been supplied with the necessary elements to do so.

Romans 3:3-4 tells us to "glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope." Paul told us to, as children of God, notice a storm brewing on the sea and glory in it. He told us to strengthen our legs, lift up our hands, and to walk straightforward. He wanted us to realize that the love and strength of God within us is more than enough to see a storm and strengthen, as spiritual discipline taught us to do. To be ready, to be brave. Every storm is a chance to be charted; and as a fitted out ship, you can chart it. Trust the process of discipline because each stage produces a new product, a more refined you.

Someone else might see a storm on the horizon and fall. Someone else might find themselves in the midst of a storm and fail. But as a child of God, see a storm and resolve to fight. You've been fitted for the fight.

FEED MY SHEEP

“You are My flock, the flock of My pasture; human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God,” says the Lord God. Ezekiel 34:31 

God's foremost objective is to care for His family. His foremost directive is for us to care for His family. To explain and emphasize His exhortation, throughout scripture God uses the metaphor of sheep and shepherd. We are His "flock" of sheep, a term of endearment used by Jesus Himself in Luke 12:32 ("Fear not little flock;..."). He is our shepherd; and is frequently described as such in scripture. 

• SCATTERED FLOCK

In Ezekiel 34:1-10, God declared the infractions made by people who were supposed to shepherd God's flock:

What they did not do made them neglectful. 

The weak you have not strengthened.
The sick you have not healed.
The injured you have not bound up.
The strayed you have not brought back.
The lost you have not sought. 

What they did do made them abhorrent:

You fed yourselves.

You clothed yourselves.

You ruled with force and harshness.

Negligence and harsh treatment resulted in a scattered flock. A vulnerable flock. The flock became prey. Such negligence and harsh treatment is the reason why God's flock are scattered now instead of gathered in the kingdom. Deviations from God's philosophy, His program of justice and compassion, have caused humanity to scatter. Not geographically but spiritually. Emotionally. 

God charged Ezekiel to prophesy against the abhorrent shepherds, and the heat of His anger will be just as hot against the person today who neglects their duty in shepherdship. He will neither accept not ignore behavior that harms or fails to help His people. We are not on earth for self-serving purposes; we are not here to procure for ourselves. Faithful children of God are provided for by God. Our objective is not to sustain ourselves, that position has been filled; our objective is to sustain others. Therefore, self-serving behavior is wasteful. 

We will not fit-in in heaven if we do not fit heaven's purposes into our lives. It is imperative that we learn that here before there is no place or purpose for us there. This life is our opportunity to declare that we are aligned with heaven rather than against it. This is our time to claim our role as caretaker, as shepherd of our portion of the flock. None of the shepherds above were accused of breaking commandments; they were not even directly accused of sin. They were accused of neglect and selfish behavior. Crimes we are all guilty of committing at times in our lives. And because we are all guilty of them, the "flock" is as scattered and desperate now as it was then.

• TEND MY SHEEP

Jesus anticipated that God's flock would require shepherding in future generations, that is why He exhorted Peter to take care of His sheep three successive times; and it is why that text is still alive today.

In John 21, Jesus asked Peter: "do you love me?" When Peter answered that he did, Jesus responded: "Feed my lambs." Jesus asked again and a second time, Peter answered yes. Jesus responded: "Tend my sheep." The third time Jesus asked, Peter became distressed, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." It was so important to Peter that Jesus knew he loved Him. A final time, Jesus answered: "Feed my sheep."

It's probably important to you, too. You want God to know that you love Him. From Jesus and Peter's exchange, God told us how to truly love Him: by tending to His sheep. You do not have say that you love Him three or three billion times to make it true or known. You just have to tend His sheep. Do that and He will know. 

We are so loved by God that he used His final hours on earth to exhort the disciples to tend to, to feed, His flock. Instead of exhorting the disciples to follow rules or rituals, He urged them to take care of people. Selflessly, Jesus turned the attention away from Himself and onto others.

SHEPHERD THE FLOCK

How do we shepherd the flock? Fittingly, we can look to 1 Peter 3;5 for the answer.

There is hunger in the world; and certainly, there are people who need food. But there is another type of hunger prevalent in the world as well. We are called to feed both. There is a hunger we can fill with our behavior. There is hunger, a restlessness, a desperation in the world that can only be filled and calmed by the lifestyle God has outlined for His children. If we know it, we have to live it. And by living it, we feed others with a way of life previously foreign and unattainable to them.

Our temperament and choices are a type of food the people around us eat by observing it, by being recipients of it. They adopt the lifestyle when we evidence that it works. That is fills and calms empty, restless souls. What are the elements of this lifestyle?

Unity of mind. Sympathy. Brotherly love. Tender hearts. Humble minds. Bless instead of curse. Speak truth. Turn from evil. Do good. Seek and pursue peace (1 Peter 3:9-11). We "feed" (metaphorically) the world by doing the reverse of what the people did in Ezekiel 34. We strengthen others with our friendship and support and with our own strength, with the resources we have and they lack. We heal the injured with our kindness and empathy, by providing our time and attention. We bind the injured with truth when the world showed them only deceit; we bind their wounds with steadfastness when the world abandoned them. We seek the lost when we reserve harsh judgement; when we try to know them, understand their circumstances. We pursue the lost when we pursue their restoration rather than merely observe their destruction.

We have to feed others when others in the world starved them of family or friendship or opportunity. We have to clothe others when pain and shame and injustice have stripped them bare. We cannot dominate the people weaker than us; we must express mercy with gentleness. Ultimately, the thousand plus pages of the Bible are teaching us, urging us to simply... be kind. Humans have complicated life so much that we require so much lecturing, so much encouragement, so much example to do a truly simple thing: love people.

Those who do so live under God's gracious gaze (1 Peter 3:12).Those who shepherd the flock are shepherded by The Shepherd. 

•  SHEPHERDSHIP 

For God has declared Himself so: "Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered..." (Ezekiel 34:11-12).

In response to the selfish neglect and cruelty of the irresponsible shepherds, God replaced them with Himself. Although a cruel and selfish person neglects and harms the sheep, it is not the sheep that will ultimately suffer. For God has spoken, "I will feed My flock and I will make them lie down... I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in my judgement." (Ezekiel 34:15-16). 

Our spiritual Father is a shepherd and He wants His children to continue the trade. He is a peace-provider, a chain-breaker, a soul-savior; and as we are made in His image (Genesis 1:27), we have both the ability and responsibility, to draw those spiritual elements out of ourselves and into the world. Willingly. Eagerly. Selflessly. Humbly. (1 Peter 5:1-3).

Those who adopt shepherdship now receive as well as reinforce God's peace and blessing, rescue and security. 

Jesus' life and Resurrection provided us with a Shepherd. Emulate the life He lived. 1 Peter 2:25, "For you were like sheep going astray," but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. It has been declared that each of us have gone astray. Maybe in the past, maybe in the present. God wants you to shepherd the people in either place.

FOR COMFORT

In life, fear will work to invade atmospheres of peace. Anticipate its attempted intrusion and let it at the door meet full force conviction. The following are a selection of verses in scripture that help us to do just that: to dismantle fear's power and dissipate fear's presence with the conviction that our God is stronger, wiser, and more able than any foreboding thing, person or situation. 

While each of the following help us to restore peace, their greatest impact is made when they are deeply founded in faith. The more time we spend deep in scripture, in prayer and communication with God, the more powerfully we are able to dispel fear. The more faith we give God to work with, the more readily and systematically do we disassemble the machination of fear. 

If read chronologically, the Bible is essentially a tracking of mess to order. Through the lives of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and so many others, we can see God working arduously, skillfully within details to ensure a specific outcome. Revelation 21, all things made new; no fear, no tear, no death, no sorrow, no pain. Scripture is an example of how our God is able to work all things for good despite close and persistent threat. From an eternal perspective, lifelong perspective and day-to-day perspective God rescues us and solves our problems. Fight the panic and hopelessness of fear with the love letter God wrote specifically for you. 

• Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

God understands that our responsibilities accumulate here; there is so much we have to do and be to have a full life. In response to that, He teaches us to swap the burden of those responsibilities for this one opportunity: seek God. The sixth chapter of Matthew encourages us to pursue our relationship with God, for while we do, He will take care of everything else. 

God is able to wield and forge and arrange the details of our lives to culminate in the growth and betterment of our life and character. The more pieces we put into His hands with faith in His skill, the more comprehensively He is able to sculpt our lives.

• 2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Fear will fight faith: can God handle it? Will God handle it? And if so, how? Fear is concerned about the journey but faith is secure in God's path. Faith is stalwart in the belief that He can and He will so efficiently that the how is irrelevant. God calls us to seek Him with our whole heart and whole soul; He understands that if we do give our entire attention to Him, we will need Him to take care of what is  unseen in our periphery and ahead in our path. 

• Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Quite simply, we do not need to fear because when we vocalize our distress, He rescues. In the Old Testament, Jehoshaphat is seconds and dozen spears away from death but because he used his last seconds to call to God, he was saved. The situation was literal for Jehoshaphat (see 2 Chronicles 17), but for us it is often metaphorical. Fear is oppresses, stifles, and pervades but use those last seconds before it closes in completely to call to God. It has been declared that He will answer and that He will save. 

• Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Find a haven in the fact that God has purpose for you, purpose He established in advance. He is intentional with your life when you allow Him to position His will within it. God has plans for you to do good work, not to sink or fail. Would God prepare failure or destitution for you in advance? No, that would not require planning. If that were His plan, He never would have even introduced Himself to us. He would have just let us flail about. Remember that God has made plans to craft your life for good. 

• Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

God is really talented. He is the original abstract-artist. He compiles unlikely materials and welds them into a masterpiece. From our perspective, our life might look like a pile of unusable, non-valuable junk. But from God's perspective, our life is a challenge He has already artistically mastered; to Him, our life is a pile of materials that only He can see the connections in. In desperate situations, when the outcome looks bleak, trust that God's artistry is more advanced than our limited view. 

• Matthew 6:8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

Speaking of our limited view, Jesus stated frankly that God knows what we need better than we do, before we do. It's like driving only to suddenly find that the bridge is closed! We panic for an alternate route! But God knew that bridge was closed before we even buckled our seat-belt and planned accordingly, which is why it is so imperative that we have submitted ourselves to His plan! 

Jesus did not want us to be like the rest of the panicked world because as children of God, we have already been provided for. God has planned our course and therefore He has already accounted for it's turns and divots and barriers. Before we realize them and before we ask for help through them, He already has a plan through them. He will lead you forward, usually incrementally, at a pace that requires faith. He will deliver you directly into the provision you require. 

God knows what we need; He is an informed and attentive Father. He is fully prepared to fill our biological, emotional, and spiritual needs. He is fully prepared to compensate for our inadequacy, and supplement our deficiency, in friendship, relationship, profession and whatever else. If with live our lives with righteous intent, God will provide.

• Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

God knows what we need... and better than we do. Moreover, He emphatically pursues and creates and intercedes to ensure that we get it! God's wisdom is able to discern between what we think we want and what we actually need. In moments of fear, trust that God is interceding on your behalf. He knows what prayer will rescue you from your fear and utters it on your behalf. He speaks your rescue into the universe and into existence. 

We might think a certain circumstance would rescue us from a fearsome outcome; it would cause us to pray for the wrong thing. How blessed is it for us that God bats those nonconstructive thoughts away and replaces them with constructive action?

• Isaiah 43:1-3

But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine. 

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you. 

For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

We have been claimed by God. God will take care of what belongs to Him; He has promised to accompany us through our journey, its difficulty and its joy. He has declared Himself our savior. He chose the word savior because of our tendency to need saving! 

Sometimes humans adopt animals without understanding (or committing to) the responsibility of pet ownership. But God knew what the adoption of humanity would require and He committed to it. We are an accident-prone bunch. We need constant saving and so God became our savior. We have been adopted by God, He is going to take care of His family. 

But, Father cannot help us if we have run away from home. In time of fear (and also joy) return home to be provided for, to be saved.

• Jeremiah 29:11-12 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

God's intentions for our lives are pure. He designs a future we can look forward to. He takes our prayer into account; His blessings are tailored specifically to who we are as individuals. 

• Luke 12:32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

God delights in witnessing our joy. He delights in providing our joy. The life He plans for us is filled with people and circumstances that were planned by Him to make us feel safe and happy. In this verse, God affectionately soothes our fear. Take a deep breathe of hope and love, little flock, it gives your Father joy to shower you and protect you with the power and provision of His kingdom. 

The term of endearment is not random: God is our shepherd. We are His little flock of sheep. We are inherently naive and vulnerable (as well as beautiful and kind) and He loves us for our delicacy. He protects it at all costs. 

• Matthew 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

We can only truly bask in the promise of God's provision and protection if we feel eligible for it. Good news! Jesus told us how precious we are to God, how precisely we are loved. We are valuable to Him, worth the effort we require. He knows every minute and intricate detail about us not because He has to but because we wants to. 

God loves all of His creations, for example: the tiny sparrows in the trees. God has designed a planet to sustain them, too, has He not? The environment He created supports their provision and protection. God wants us to know that if He did it for the sparrows, He will certainly do it for us. 

• Psalm 116:1-11

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Yes, our God is merciful.
The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.
I believed, therefore I spoke,
“I am greatly afflicted.”
I said in my haste, “All men are liars.”

Take courage from this psalmists relationship with God. From a hopeless situation, God restored. A desperate cry, God heard and answered. From trouble and sorrow God saved. From the lowest point, God raised. The psalmist had no one in the world to trust but had God and He was more than enough. 

God dealt bountifully with the psalmist's soul. God does not flippantly toss scraps. He blesses abundantly, intentionally. He rescues triumphantly. He loves emphatically. With conviction dismiss fear and allow yourself to be embraced by the perfect love of God.

• 2 Chronicles 20:12 For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”

Jehoshaphat was surrounded. Out-manned. Over powered. Out-witted. In that moment of complete fear, he fixed his eyes on God. Though the moment sounds panicked, Jehoshaphat solemnly relied solely on his faith. When we lose our chance, our weapon, our hope and even the will to fight, we must finally fix our eyes on God. 

Sometimes it is only when we realize and accept our inability that we see the benefit of trusting God. God's strength and ability begins working for us the exact moment it is activated by our faith. Jehoshaphat knew that from God's perspective a way could be made. Surrender, never to your enemies but always to God. Put your weapons down and allow Him to become your defense. 

• 2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.

God wants us to feel secure in His qualifications for our rescue and defense:

His omnipresence is vigilant, fastidious and alert.

• Nothing escapes His notice. His children are so valuable to Him that is present everywhere to support them.

His omnipotence is powerful, unmatched and undeterred.

• No force is able to contend with Him; He wins with ease. 

His omniscience is complete.

• He owns all wisdom, all knowledge, all reason, all logic, all science, all sides, all forms; whatever it is, He has both created and mastered it.

God wants us to have conviction in His ability to render the fear in our life mute, powerless and irrelevant.

• Luke 11:11-13 "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

When we adopt the Christian lifestyle, we are adopted by God. We were always His creation, but we become reclaimed. As claimed children, we have ownership within our Father's kingdom. We become possessors of His love and kindness, God's mercy and protection. We can expect our lives to unfold in accordance with His will. And God's will for us is good.

Jesus more than gave us permission to ask, Jesus encouraged us to ask God for our myriad of needs. He told us that we would receive. From Jesus we learned that we cannot expect that God will hear and respond with action and deliverance. For God's children know what to ask for; we ask for God. We ask for His will over our life. We ask for the peace and protection and provision He has promised. And Jesus assured us that God is fully aware of a good gift.

God has offered peace and protection and provision because He knows that ultimately, every need we have is stemmed from a need for those three things. When we ask God for those things, why would we ever expect or fear that He would answer with their opposites?

PAUL IS PROOF

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
John 3:17

Do not misunderstand the purpose of Jesus' life and ministry; do not mis-assign His target: not the flawless but the flawed; not the righteous but the unrighteous; not the sinless but the sinful; not the found but the lost; not the best but the worst.

Jesus came to find and (re)direct the lost and directionless; He came to put purpose in our journey and destination at the end of it. He came to re-purpose our flaws, mistakes and weaknesses into motivations, messages, and strengths. And so, regardless of why we are unworthy, or even how unworthy we are, God has made us His beloved mission. He has determined us, all of us who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, worth His time and His love.

• NOT TO CONDEMN BUT TO SAVE

Jesus was frequently questioned about, and judged for, his association with... well, sinners. In Matthew 9:9-12 specifically, adversaries of Jesus asked His disciples why Jesus interacted with the people society had condemned and socially quarantined. Jesus answered that the sick need a doctor, not the healthy. Society might have condemned and quarantined them, but God had not. God, Spiritual-Physician that He is, had compassion on them; spiritual stethoscope on their souls, He diagnosed that they needed healing. Jesus was the prescription; His ministry, the word and philosophy of God was the treatment. 

We, therefore, who have insecurities, deficiencies, and emotional turbulence, are most fortunate. For God is a specialist in our ailments. He is here and near and most importantly, equipped, to heal us. Although so many authoritarians would have arrived to condemn, Jesus came to save. He came to sentence us to life rather than death, and helps us to make the spiritual crossover.

• ONE SINNER WHO REPENTS

If you have ever believed that your mistakes or wandering have made you less valuable to God, read the Parable of the Lost Son in the gospels. In the Parable there is a father with two sons. One of the sons remained with and loyal to his father, but the younger son did not. The younger son left and consequently languished. He struggled in life and became desperate enough to reflect on his choices. He realized he needed to go home, but knew his father would not accept him back as a beloved son. But he had learned from his mistakes and had changed; he began to value the family he had been born into. He hoped, at most, that his father would take pity on him, relent, and allow him back as a servant.

The son journeyed back to his home. While was still a long way off, his father noticed his younger son and had not pity, but compassion for his son. The father ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. Immediately the younger son repented and humbled himself before his father. He felt unworthy; he did not believe he deserved the blessings he squandered, rejected and neglected. 

But the father began to clothe his son in the familial vestment. So great was the father's joy at his son's return that he immediately restored him and planned a celebration for his arrival. He exclaimed: "...my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." Though we had turned our back to Him, the love and mercy of God rushes toward us the moment we decide to turn our face  toward him. He considers our change of heart our return to life, and by Him we are welcomed home as beloved children once again.

It is thanks to the elder son's confusion that we understand why the wayward son was restored to his father's good graces so readily. The father had to explain to him that his younger brother's return was so beautiful because he had been dead. The elder son had always obeyed his father, unrighteousness, thus death had never claimed him. But the younger brother was in the clutches of death, he was a slave to sin, he was disconnected from the Kingdom. His return was so spectacular because it had been so unlikely. He return was so spectacular because he had been so far away! He had almost to the point of no return. His return was so spectacular because instead of suffering a loss, the Kingdom of God could celebrate a restoration, and addition. 

• SAVES THE ONE

In Luke 15:1-7, Jesus used an analogy of sheep to explain that God charges into the wilderness to save one of His lost ones. Just as in the Parable of the Lost son, those who never go astray are loved, but so, deeply, are those who do. In fact, we learn that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance."

We are cherished even more for who we are because of who we were. In His appreciation for us, God takes into account the arduous journey we take from past-self to present-self. After all, The people who left the kingdom worked harder than anyone else to be in it. The sick child restored to health, the lost child who found his way home, is cause for heaven-wide celebration.

• APPOINTED TO HIS SERVICE

In the book of 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Paul confessed that even though he considered himself to be the worst sinner of all sinners, by God's grace, he was appointed to His service. Returned children, healed children, are not just restored to a place in heaven, they are also given a purpose.

Jesus enabled Paul, put him directly in the ministry, because Paul's past served the impact of his future. Paul was known, infamously, as the persecutor of the Christian faith. Having come further than anyone else, from the brink of death to the peak of life, Paul's testimony carried a weight different and heavier than anyone else's could have. When he, Paul, the most known, most deadly persecutor of Christians to converted to Christianity the world changed; the ministry of Jesus reached further than ever before across the world and generations. 

Jesus came to save sinners and Paul is proof. Paul's life exemplified the pattern of God's patience: this, exclaimed Paul's life, is the pattern that is the restoration of the repentant sinner: We go from death to life! Lost to found. Sick to healed. The faith and wisdom we gained during the journey back become the tools and materials we use to bring others with us back with us. Our value is increased all the more; our mistakes and weaknesses, hurts and scars, the process of our repentance and return, teaches us how best to help, to heal, to rescue the people who are what we used to be!

Maybe you are the lost son, the lost sheep, someone who walks away from or even against God. If you are, Jesus came specifically for you. Your heartbeat is in His ears, your thumbprint is on His body, your hurt has been destined for His healing. He has planned a place for you in the kingdom, a purpose for you in this life. He is closer to you than anyone else; it is your voice He most wants to hear, your face He most wants to see. 

Until now you've shown Him your back, we all have at certain times and moments in our life. We are not perfect in any moment, situation, relationship or act. There are times in everyone's day and life when our back, instead of our face, is toward Him. We lose our patience, we resist forgiveness, we make a selfish choice, relent to doubt or to temptation. It is in those moments precisely that God is most fiercely present, ready to sit and speak with us; the Great Physician, ready to heal us of the greed or lust or anger or meanness or depression that made us sick.

LOCUSTS + WILD HONEY

Of John the Baptist in the book of Isaiah:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
"Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God."

Out from the wilderness came a humble man with a bold message and a roaring voice. It was a message for dwellers of the darkness, and for the inert in the light. A new way of life, the philosophy of Jesus, barreled toward humanity, to pierce it like the sun's rays do the earth. It was John's duty to prepare them. John the Baptist was faith in action; he prepared the people to become righteous vessels of the Holy Spirit, and obedient instruments for the hands of God. He prepared them for reversal, for submersion and for reconstruction. 

In his mother's womb, John leaped in the presence of Jesus in Mary's; he was predestined and ready to fulfill his purpose, to scoop and carve and clear the way for the ministry of Jesus and presence of God. If it was necessary then, to clear a place and construct a foundation, a basis of faith within one's life, it is necessary now.

Prophecy of the life of John the Baptist foretold several things: he would be a prophet of God, he would prepare the way for the ministry of Jesus, he would inform the people of salvation obtained by the remission of sins, give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide feet into the way of peace.

DWELLERS OF DARKNESS

In order to prepare for God and the word of God to preside in our lives, we must identify ourselves as either a dweller or darkness or one who is inert in the light. A dweller of darkness is one who lives separate, perhaps even in opposition to the word of God. Few of us would identify ourselves as such. But if the word of God has not made a life-altering impact on our way of life, a reversal of how we see and behave in the world, we are a dweller of darkness. A dweller of darkness has not yet been appointed by the light for a purpose of the light. 

John called the people to repentance, and thus to soul-deep revolution. The presence of God on the earth amid humanity meant recovery from the darkness, salvation from the sin. Every person John dipped into the Jordan confessed their sin; but it is important to understand the intimate process of confession of sin. We confess our imperfection, our mistakes and failures, and our uglier tendencies to God. By confessing them, we acknowledge them. One-on-one with God, we realize and claim and thus decide the areas where we most need His grace and mercy; discipline and instruction. Repentance is the first step not to condemnation but to reconstruction. We must realize all the places of darkness within us that are stemming the light.

In order to leave the darkness, we must leave impatience and greed beyond. Self-interest cannot come with us. Anger and anxiety must be dissolved by forgiveness and trust in God. It is a process, a journey out of the dark, but as long as we are not inert in the darkness, we are active in the light. We move into the light when we leave darkness behind. Our new focus, in every situation, relationship, or mood we find ourselves in must be on:

"whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8)."

For light, the fruit of the spirit  is:

"is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)."

SHADOW OF DEATH

Alternately, John was also sent to those who dwell in the shadow of death. That is: all of us. We all live in the shadows cast by disparity and injustice. We are all hosted by temporary bodies; we all love and befriend souls hosted by temporary bodies. John came to prepare us for a drastic change in our shadowed journey. Our walk through "the valley of the shadow of death", Psalm 23, takes on new characteristics: we are shepherded, led by the River of courage and comfort from which to draw.  

As we mold ourselves receptive to the ministry of Jesus, we adopt our eternal nature. Receptive to the ministry of Jesus, we become privy to God's purposes and plans. We become agents of God's purposes and plans. We realize that that which is wrong or cruel is not absolute. We begin to see, all over the world, construction zones. Project sites commissioned by the Holy Spirit, led and supported by advocates, fellow-workers of His peace.

The shadow of death therefore is a precursor to the light of eternity. John was sent to us to inform us that we are not stuck in death's shadow; this life is a beginning, not an end. John prepared them, and us, for Jesus to explain precisely how.

INERT IN THE LIGHT

It is not enough to bask in the light. From John, an itinerant preacher, we should learn that we are meant to move, to speak, to act. Submersion is in his title: John the Baptist; John the baptizer.  Submersion in the river Jordan was symbolic of submersion in faith. Our objectives shift, our purpose is established, our values are chosen by God, our wisdom is gleaned from Him. We are meant to use all of that. 

God provides the light, that is, the peace and comfort and hope and advocacy. He provides those things for a purpose... for our purpose. For our mission, our life's work in faith. What would we need advocacy for if we were inert? If we aren't breaking chains why do we need strength? If we aren't speaking out in defense of the meek, why do we need confidence? If we aren't going to love, why do we need comfort? If we aren't going to bear the burns of forgiveness and the bruises of compassion, why do we need healing?

We receive for a purpose. His advocacy is to advocate for us while we walk, while we speak, while we work.

 HOST OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 

For the Holy Spirit to arrive and reside in our life, we must foster within ourselves the climate in which It thrives. Only a righteous host can host Righteousness. This is why it was so essential for John Baptist to prepare the way. This is why it is so essential for us to prepare the way for God to arrive in our lives. We suffocate our faith when we foster a toxic atmosphere. 

We cannot allow impatience, anger, greed, temptation, or injustice to fester in the place where we expect God to be. We have to behave selflessly in moments we feel most inclined to be selfish. We must sacrifice and give when our desire flares. We must choose justice even when it does not equate with a status elevation of ourselves. In the day-to-day, the thought-to-thought, we have to create a habitable soul for the Holy Spirit to fill. 

The ministry of Jesus reached a region which had been prepared for it because this lifestyle is not one that can reside on, or reside with, another. It cannot be contradicted, it must be absolute. We cannot have one foot in the dark and one in the light; a house divided cannot stand. What we think, say and do will never be steadfastly perfect. But our intention to think, say, and do things worthy of, like God, must be! Our commitment to this lifestyle must be steadfast and absolute. Faith unfed will starve, and our faith's provision comes from what our minds, and voices and hands produce. Faith will not subsist on the wrong food.

John was appointed to guide feet to the path of peace. Within the ministry of God, we walk a new road: a path of peace. He cleared the brambles, he trod the path for us to follow. As we walk into the Kingdom, we delve into comprehensive peace. He taught us to prepare ourselves, to prepare our lives for change and reversal, for purpose and new direction. Because beside Jesus, fear is illogical, shame is removed, chaos is ordered, safety is ensured, provision is provided, defense is absolute. Beside Jesus, peace is established and upheld.

John was a simple man who came from the countryside; he lived as a minimalist, eating only locusts and wild honey. God prepared him for great, prophetic, action-packed purpose yet he remained a humble man. The symbolism is that he subsisted on the natural, incredible, honey that is God's word and he crushed his enemies with the movements of his life. Locusts are used in the Bible to symbolize the enemy, the sin that corrodes the world. Imitate John, live humbly by the light and act boldly against the dark.

UNDER THE JUNIPER TREE

Elijah had just been sentenced to death by Jezebel, the corrupt queen of a weak king. She had recently, wickedly, wielded her husband's power to slaughter one hundred of Elijah's fellow prophets. And because Elijah had publicly undermined her power in favor of God's, she vowed that her most vehement objective was his execution. Elijah's heart dropped and just as swiftly, his feet fled. And continued to flee until Elijah was a whole day's journey into the wilderness. Once he reached a place of absolute seclusion, Elijah came to rest under a juniper tree; and with him, his soul-suppressing fear and dejection. 

Alone at the base of the tree, the prophet cried out: "It is enough! Now, Lord take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" Elijah was overwhelmed to the point of surrender. A very natural response to a very human tribulation: fear, failure, dejection. Elijah's woe sculpted an imprint at the base of that juniper tree for you to sit in. At some point in your life you will need to sit in that spot and you should, because from that spot God rehabilitated His beloved child; He is equally able to rehabilitate you. 

Elijah's breakdown under the juniper tree is an illustration of God's receptive and attentive, gentle and empathetic nature. Yet the most salient point of the prophet's breakdown is God's subsequent ability to engineer the restoration of a broken spirit.

• Spiritual solitude carves the space necessary for recuperation.

Elijah knew that he needed to more than just hide from Jezebel. Before he settled under the juniper tree in the wilderness, he had reached safety: a different city, and he had arrived there with a friend. But neither safety nor friendship could settle him, never mind restore the tumult of his soul. To be healed of an afflicted soul, he had to find spiritual solitude. 

He rested on the ground of the tree and slept. He needed rest, and in that quiet place, boisterous only with the delicate twitter of nature, an angel touched him. The angel carried and delivered to Elijah a directive from God: arise and eat. Still despondent, Elijah surveyed the baked bread and the cruse of water and then complied. He ate and drank and rested.

God wants you to do more than simply hide from fear or enemies. He wants to tend to your wounds; He wants to assign an angel to  to deliver provision and to minister to your needs. In order to do that, He needs you to journey into a place where such ministrations can be delivered. A place of spiritual solitude, literal for Elijah and perhaps for you too, but figuratively as well. Exclusively two things must you permit entrance to your soul: the bread of life and the living water. You need to submit yourself to God's word and will and submerse yourself in His love and promises.

The baked bread that Elijah ate was more than a meal, more than a symbol. The bread was the bread of life, sustenance sourced from God. Elijah consumed the provision of God, the only organic substance specific and adequate enough to revive the soul. Elijah allowed the angel not to administer bread but to minister to him the encouragement, the purpose, the plan and protection of God. Elijah guzzled the living water that quenched and revived the spirit in him that had grown parched in the oppressive heat of the world. Elijah submerged himself in God's solemnity, it poured back into his life and doused the fires that had burned him nearly to ash.

God's solemnity will form a barrier between you and the chaos, you and the fear, you and the source of your torment. To have that barrier, to disallow the noise and chaos to permeate and frazzle your state of mind, you need to delve into spiritual solitude. You must allow God to minister to you through scripture, through quiet contemplate and trust in His authority over all forces in your life. Like Elijah, you need to rest and you need to know that redemptive rest comes through absolute reliance on God and the severing of all else.

• Identification of the cause and expression of the effects, outlines a response of restorative course of action.

The second time the angel returned to Elijah he added: for the journey is too great for you. God needed Elijah to be in a state of redemptive rest before He could present Elijah with the opportunity to rage. Outside of that state of God ordained peace, the anger and the fear would have consumed Elijah. His lament would have echoed and reverberated off of every broken place within him and around him. But restored to God, his lament was caught and heard and sheltered.

It was a process. The process of a lifetime, but concentrated with concentrated effort over a forty-day journey. It was not geographical, it was spiritual. While Elijah's body exerted physical effort, his mind exerted spiritual effort: the journey provided time for the struggle in his soul. He had prepared and practiced. He had been brave and righteous. He had confronted his enemies... and failed. The courage he relied on weakened under the strain of his enemy's might. Finally God asked Elijah: why are you here? In effect, God wanted to know how Elijah had gotten to that place. Not the cave, but the deep dispirited valley of his soul.

God knew the intimate details of Elijah's plight but allowed Elijah the opportunity to speak, to describe it for himself. To articulate and thus identify core of his dejection. This was nothing short of the expression of a of raw, honest prayer. God invited Elijah, and he invites you, to present to knot to Him. And once you have, He says: Let's unravel it together. We say: this is my problem, and God answers: this is My plan for it.

A torrent of honesty gushed out of Elijah. Elijah's problems were not his fault. His failure was actually success; he had planted the seeds God gave him to plant, it was not his fault that they did not yield. Yet even if Elijah had caused his own problems, even if Elijah failed to follow God's directives, from this place of honesty and submission, God would have rehabilitated him. Just as He will rehabilitate you, regardless of your guilt or innocence, your success or failure.

Be honest in the prayerful vocalization of your anger, fear and pain. God listens patiently, and answers constructively. He always provides you the opportunity speak for yourself, to explain for yourself, to express what rages within you. Allow God to lead you into a private place, even if that private place is the recess of your own mind, upheld only by the pillars of God's strength. Because in that private place, everyone else's opinion is silenced; every noise the world, the fear, the pain, the anger, the enemy makes is unable to disturb you. In that private place you have the microphone and the audience of God.

And then you switch positions.

• The chaotic noise with-out attempts to mute the steady quiet within. 

After your exposition begins God's presentation. God will present the crack in your foundation, the fissure in your resolve and then He will demonstrate how to re-secure it, and how to re-establish your spiritual resolve. 

Elijah experienced an epic demonstration, complete with earthquakes and fire and destructive winds. While Elijah crouched in the cave, his cloak wrapped over his face and body, God sent the wind. God make the earth quake. God set the earth on fire. 

But God was not in the wind. God was not in the earthquake. God was not in the fire. God wanted Elijah to realize that no matter what noise or tizzy the earth or person or emotion makes, none of it has the power of God within it. Therefore of none of it should he be afraid. After the earthquake, the wind and fire, there was something: a still, small voice. The gentle, steady whisper of God. 

God demonstrated such an epic display in order to familiarize Elijah with the quiet power of God. The power so immutable, so unmatched that it does not need to stir up wind, or waves or quakes to completely restructure any atmosphere or any terrain. God wanted Elijah to realize the difference between the power people and fear hold in the world versus the power God holds over the world.

Similarly God needs you to be able to distinguish His voice from the rest; because if it's not God, it's not relevant. Elijah fractured because he paid too much attention to the noise of the world that he neglected to listen for the voice of God. God is a quiet power; with a silent tug He can topple any man, fear or nation. By an inaudible tweak He can reverse situations, return losses, restore spirits. 

Elijah had to learn to sense God's presence amid, beneath, and over the noise. He had to learn to root himself in the spiritual security God provides otherwise he would continue to be plucked up and tossed about by anything and anyone. Elijah learned to listen and then God performed his final demonstration: He listened too. Elijah's fear and tribulations were valid, he was justifiably overwhelmed. God heard his plea and answered it. He reassigned Elijah to a new position, and handed him a fresh purpose to accomplish while God prepared the inevitable destruction of his enemies.

As children of God, our lives are bookend-ed by His promises and by the fulfillment of His promises. The life in between is a spiritual journey of, hopefully, trust and subsequent joy and justice. Your steadfast ability to sense and distinguish God's quiet voice from all others, tethers each moment of your life from promise to blessing. Rest, when you need to, under the juniper tree. 

ZAREPHATH

In the Book of I Kings, the prophet Elijah was sent by God to Zarephath. "Zarephath" was a place, but means: refinement. The command to travel to Zarephath was just one in a series of directives given by God that was meant to refine Elijah's faith. Whether Elijah was aware or not, God was preparing the prophet for a future of important and influential work. Important and influential work that could not have been accomplished without refined faith. 

We are often unwitting participants of our own spiritual growth. We have to awaken-spiritually to realize that our life is not random or irrelevant but actually charted and purposeful. With that realization, our perception of life changes: life stops appearing as a loud and chaotic park and reveals itself more accurately as a training course. The training course of life produces refinement of faith. 

Elijah allowed God to lead him along the path of refinement, even though that path frequently looked like a dead end street to desperation. He could not have refined his faith when it came time to fulfill his purpose; he had to rely on faith when it came to that. The time for refinement was along the journey leading up to fulfillment. We refine our faith as we submit to the will of God, but we rely on faith as we do the work of God. 

From I Kings 17:1-24, five points made by Elijah's journey of refinement allow us to make inferences about our own.  With refined faith, the scope of our purpose grows and so too does our ability to fulfill it.

God will give you power within your situation to exert change over your situation 

Faith will equip you with tools you never thought you'd wield, and influence you never thought you'd have 

The kingdom of Israel had unraveled. A corrupt king named Ahab abandoned the word and will of God and the kingdom subsequently devolved into a wicked place. Its ears were closed to God's commandments and to His reprimands. For their own good, God decided to make them listen. Simultaneously, God decided to make a man for them to listen to: Elijah. 

So God instituted a drought. No longer would they be able to live wickedly and with the resources to fuel and enable their corrupt behavior. He also instituted one man who had power over the drought. The arrangement of these circumstances suddenly made the word of God, through a prophet of God, something the kingdom was keenly interested in. God induced their realization that not only did they need Him, they could not ignore him any longer. 

A fierce and desperate search began for Elijah, who by God, was instructed to hide. The kingdom of Israel would have to endure the drought; just as their kingdom and behavior had been devoid of righteousness, so would there land for a time be devoid of rain. The rain, a crucial, and life-giving element would serve as a symbol for the other crucial, life-giving element: the word of God. Just as they could not live prosperously without rain, neither could they live prosperously without God. 

You may not identify yourself as a prophet of God, and in your life, you probably will never have to personally confront a king. But no matter who you are, you will at some point in life find yourself with a circumstance that desperately needs change. And if you're reasonable, you will also find yourself to be wholly inadequate at fixing that situation. But your willing and faithful heart will move God to do for you as He did for Elijah: He will make your voice the voice the people around you need to hear and the one they are forced to hear, as long as your voice is carrying God's message.

People will not necessarily, suddenly be grateful for or receptive to your voice but they will hear it. And in hearing it, will finally receive the message that God intends for them to hear. God will arrange a situation so that the people around you need what only your influence provides. The situation might not readily operate smoothly and efficient but because of you, your delivery of God's word, the gears will begin to turn. 

God can bend and rewrite possibilities to ensure you receive what you need

God arranges surprising details to ensure unforeseen outcomes 

God sent Elijah to the Brook Cherith, a little stream of water that connected to the greater body of water that is the Jordan River. Even in seclusion, Elijah himself was connected to the greater body, the greater source: God. Understand that God did not institute Elijah as a king. Elijah was a conduit, a vessel through which God's word reached the people who needed to hear it. God did not establish Elijah as king, oust Ahab, and form a dictatorship over the people. Instead, God made a tweak in the region and then promptly instructed Elijah to hide... by a tiny little brook to subsist on scraps. 

God works in the details, under the radar, making small tweaks to enact big change. While in your position as one of those tiny-tweak-makers, it is important that you remember that you're still connected to the greater body: to God. It could have gotten lonely for Elijah. He could have easily felt at once used and useless. But Elijah's personal needs were still important to God and your personal needs are important to God too, as important as the needs of kingdoms.

God told Elijah to drink from the brook. He also told Elijah that He would command the ravens to feed him. The brook was steadily running dry and it was (is) unheard of to be fed by birds. But this impossible, desperate situation served the process of refinement of faith. Elijah trusted and he was fed.

Perhaps no bird has ever brought you dinner, but know that God makes divine arrangements to ensure that you get what you need. Routinely. Precisely when you need it and in the necessary amounts. Little things that could seem like fortunate coincidences to untrained eyes are actually God working details into your favor. And when you learn that God is working the details even in the small moments, you learn to rely on him in the big ones. Elijah had plenty of those coming, and so do you.

God directs your steps to new places 

You will be led to the the places that will best serve your growth 

After awhile, the brook ran dry. God was ready to move him forward into a new course of refinement. But forward movement brought Elijah into foreign territory; a new place to refine his faith in a new way. Since Elijah had seemingly graduated from the feeble little brook, one would expect that God would deliver him into an upgraded situation. And He did, but that upgraded situation came in the form of a ramshackle dwelling place owned by a destitute widow and her starving son. 

God will not lead you into places that serve your status. He will lead you into places that serve your growth. Elijah was a renowned prophet of God and righteous man; if God had served Elijah's status, it would definitely not have resulted in a mere hovel. God served Elijah's growth potential instead. 

When you pass a section of the course of spiritual refinement, God will move you forward. But forward is indeed still foreign. Just because you trusted God with your former situation does not guarantee that you will trust Him with your future one. But it should. And it has to in order for you to acknowledge, appreciate and utilize each new place or season of life for what it actually is: a new element of the training course. Every new place He brings you comes with new areas of faith to be strengthened. Areas that need to be strengthened in your present in order for you to fulfill purpose in your future. Powerfully and adeptly.

Every new place God brings you might not look like something that reflects your spiritual status but most certainly does. God led Elijah to a hovel. God trusted Elijah a great deal to believe that Elijah would appreciate a situation that almost no one (maybe no one else) on earth ever would appreciate. To whom much is given is often a verse interpreted in terms of money and influence, and rightly so. But sometimes God gives much learning material, much training, to people He expects will learn much from it. God led Jesus to similar places: to the sick and dying, to the sinful and corrupt, to death on the cross. But God led Jesus to those places, and Elijah to the widow, because those places reflected the size not of their status but of their faith. 

God can make something out of nothing, and more out of less

Full faith will not produce an empty storehouse 

Elijah would have been hungry after the journey to the widow's home. Weary, and in need of sustenance. When you request sustenance from God, you would probably never expect Him to lead you to someone who has none. But that is exactly what God did for Elijah. The answer to his need for sustenance came in the form of a destitute, widowed mother one meal away from death by starvation. 

A new element of faith for Elijah: did he trust God enough to ask for food from a woman who barely had enough for her child? The purpose of this situation is not to encourage us to lean on people who are destitute. The purpose of this situation is to encourage us to lean on God so heavily, to trust God so emphatically, that we know our provision is dependent on God, not a storehouse; on God, not a person; on God; not a place.

So Elijah asked the woman for a small portion of her small portion: a little cake of flour cooked with oil. And he promised her, with faith in God, that if she did, her flour bin would not empty. Her cruse of oil would not go dry. She would eat, her son would eat, and they would have perpetual meals instead of a last meal.

God will make a nobody into a somebody. The least into the greatest. More out of less. Give Him what you have and He will grow it. He will forge a path at the spot in your life you thought was a dead end. All you have to do is donate what you have to His purposes. This widowed woman donated what she had to God's purposes: she fed and housed a prophet of God that would go on to change the nation. Support God's purposes and be supported by God. 

God can reverse and revive circumstances that are dead 

Your journey in faith does not result in irrelevance, destruction or death

Elijah had to learn to trust that God would not lead him into desolation, nor would He abandon him there. To do that, Elijah began perhaps the most harrowing of lessons on his spiritual training course: the death of the widow's son. Understandably, the mother went berserk. And though he contained and channeled it better, so did Elijah. 

Is the length of your trust in God as long as His path? Are you able to trust that the outcome of situations in your life are in alignment with His plan, even if you do not understand why? Elijah brought the boy up to a private place and began an earnest prayer. God revived the boy. 

*Always remember that the world's concept of death of the body does not apply to the life of the soul. After life on earth, our soul begins a new iteration of life but in spirit, with God. 

Maybe your prayers are not exactly raising the dead, at least not literally speaking. But from Elijah's story God wants you to know that circumstances which seem to be dead can be revived by Him. A soured marriage, a friendship in a rocky place. A lost self-confidence. Crippling loneliness. Change that will not seem to come. All of those situations, and more, can be reversed by Him. When you put effort into God's purposes, blessings will come into fruition. 

Because faith sometimes takes us into such bleak places and impossible situations, we have to learn that He will never lead us nowhere. He will never grow us to no purpose. He does not build to destroy. He does not hand life over to death. Elijah was about to confront some seriously dangerous and powerful people. His situation would appear more bleak and more impossible than it ever had before. God knew that He had to believe going into that situation, that God could bring him through it. 

God is not constantly preparing us for dark times. There are great, bright blessings we need preparation for as well. As we become spouses and parents, friends and coworkers, neighbors and professionals, we require new skills. Dark or light, in all situations children of God have to learn that He will be with them before and throughout. God is calling you into Zarephath, into refinement, will you meet Him there?

WELL OF LIFE

Give me a drink. 

Jesus initiated a conversation with a request. He asked the Samaritan woman at the well with Him to draw a cup of water so He could take it in; but Jesus' request was not for actual water. What Jesus truly wanted was for the woman to draw from the well of herself, and offer to Him what she drew from deep inside: her spirit, her life, her love.

He wanted to build a spiritual relationship with her and he began by making a simple, though symbolic request. A symbiotic request: an exchange for what each other's "well" provides. Jesus makes an identical request to you, and perhaps like the woman of John 4:1-26, you do not yet know His full identity. But He knows yours and makes a request for it. A request to know who you are, to love who you are and to provide everlasting provision to protect who you are and enable you to thrive.

Our relationship with God is the one relationship in our life that has a single request: fidelity. And to those who provide it, He provides for. He knit you in the womb and knew that if you were to exclusively engage your life to Him, your life would be exclusively dependent on Him. God does not expect us to subsist on thin air, neither does He want us to survive on anything futile or harmful; so He provides a well from which we can draw: a source of living water, the sustenance of Him.

Allow Jesus to initiate a conversation with you. 

A conversation with Jesus develops into a lifelong relationship. 

How many people want to know who you are? How many people want to love who you are? The intricate details. Even the dark ones. God devotes His full attention to a concentrated effort to do just that: He wants to know what makes you smile and laugh; He wants to know what confuses or distracts you; He wants to know what dreams you contemplate and what hopes you foster; He wants to know what frightens you or taunts you.

In other words: He wants entry to your life and soul. He already has access to it; after all, He created it and allowed it to be itself. He could barge in. But He awaits your invitation. He delights in your conversation. He cherishes the authentic process, the relationship that deepens as it is explored lifelong. He awaits entry because He knows what impact He can make from inside. 

Jesus made an intentional journey Samaria to speak with this woman, just as He makes an intentional journey to speak with you. Just you. To sit with you in a quiet place. To have a conversation that will give Him insight on how to best provide for you. To have a conversation that will give you insight on how to access that tailor-made provision. 

Determine Who your partner and provider is.  

With the knowledge that you would be dependent on Him for provision, He provided a source of specific, comprehensive sustenance. 

Jesus instructed the women to call for her husband. 

In the time and culture of this scripture, a woman was dependent on partnership with a husband for provision. He wanted her to call for the entity that was providing for her. But He did not mean an actual husband. He told her to call a figurative one. He will also instruct you to call for your husband. He will give you the opportunity to call for your figurative husband: the thing or person or philosophy that you have partnered with. The thing or person or philosophy that is supposed to be providing for you but by His estimation is not. Not adequately, and certainly not as comprehensively as Jesus would.

She responded that she did not have a husband. Jesus pointed at that indeed she did not have a husband: she had had five husbands. He did not point this out to shame her. He pointed it out to evidence that no partnership was as steadfast, as singular as His. He pointed it out to show her that none of those relationships provided what she actually needed, what nourished her soul. Jesus wanted her and us to understand that a person can move from one thing to another, from one person or philosophy to another, but none of it provides what we need soul deep. Not sufficiently and not eternally.

Juxtaposed Jesus, that thing or person or philosophy that we have partnered ourselves with is flimsy, powerless and even pathetic. Jesus us tells us to bring that thing near so that we can compare it to what He provides. Submission to an addiction? Dependency on a person? Fulfillment of a desire? A display of vanity? The attention of certain people? Do any of those things provide you value, purpose or strength? Love? Jesus says call for it. Put it in the center of the room. Put it directly under the light. Expose it. Compare it to Me. 

Beneath your flesh is a soul. You cannot nourish your soul with sustenance for the flesh. Jesus sees what you are labeling as your "husband" right now and He's challenging it. He is declaring that it is not your rightful partner. Call it, see if it can contend with Him. Determine if it can provide better for you than He can. 

If it can't, and it can't, it's time for a new partnership. It's time to partner with Jesus. 

Draw from the Well of Living Water.  

Drink from the deep well of the Holy Spirit, allowing His pure and cleansing water to course through your soul and life.

A human's body can go just three days without water. A human's soul can go an entire lifetime without the living water. But there would be no quality to that life. No weight. No purpose. No depth. No peace or joy or true love. In this world we have a lot of options, none of them as good as God. We can draw from all sorts of places, people and philosophies. But none of them as good as God.

Jesus wants you to understand that just as the body has to keep going back, once again, for temporary abatement to the well, so will you have to keep tapping into that thing that's getting you by, but only just: After a few days, you need another person to compliment you to once again, temporarily restore the value you have for yourself. You need your boyfriend or wife to tell you they love you so that once again, temporarily you feel secure in love. You need that drink or substance to once again, temporarily calm the storm within you. 

Jesus says draw from a different well. Draw from the well of life God provided to once and permanently sustain your soul. When Jesus offers you to drink from the well of life that God provides, that existential, soul deep thirst is quenched forever. You do not need another person to make you feel valued. You do not need to be desperate for a secure relationship. You do not need to submit to anything, anyone, anymore.

So draw from that well. His well. Allow Him to plant it deep within you so that His provision springs up into your soul, into your life, for all your life. Access and utilize the strength and wisdom, love and justice, patience and perseverance He provides in specific response to every situation and season in your life.

Call for your husband, call for Jesus.