Putting the cart before the horse

"You will be changed into a different person. After these signs take place, do what must be done, for God is with you. Then go down to Gilgal ahead of me. I will join you there to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. You must wait for seven days until I arrive and give you further instructions.” 

Meanwhile, Saul stayed at Gilgal, and his men were trembling with fear.  Saul waited there seven days for Samuel, as Samuel had instructed him earlier, but Samuel still didn’t come. Saul realized that his troops were rapidly slipping away.  So he demanded, “Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings!” And Saul sacrificed the burnt offering himself.

 Just as Saul was finishing with the burnt offering, Samuel arrived. Saul went out to meet and welcome him,  but Samuel said, “What is this you have done?”

 “How foolish!” Samuel exclaimed. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. Had you kept it, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.  But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” (1 Samuel 10b-8;13:7-14 NLT)

Through Samuel, God gave Saul just enough instruction and insight into a future vision of the role he was to play in Israel.  Would Saul be willing and ready to be King of a people chosen by God to show and live his character before other nations?  Would Saul be willing to follow God’s leading and timing even though he might not understand it? Saul put the “cart before the horse” and all hopes and dreams of what he could have been and accomplished was gone. 

I think of this account when I ask God to give me dreams of what he wants to be and do through me.  God, give me just enough that I can’t figure it out before your timing or before you have prepared me to follow and not manipulate to take the lead.  Give me reminders of the dream to keep me from becoming impatient or discouraged by keeping my heart open and focused on the Giver of dreams.

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Psalm 37:4

Empyting

I’ve been reading a book about emptying oneself in order to make room for what God wants to do in and through our lives.  Must admit the self reflection has been revealing and emotionally exhausting at times.  Yet there has been, and is continuing to be, a cleansing very much like the summer rains I used to run in as a kid.  Did you ever do that?  Remember the fresh gentle rain falling on your warm skin?  Remember the relief from the heat and rejuvenation that came with the rain?  It recharged us to the point we could have run around until midnight with the energy that came from those rains.

This same kind of cleansing can come when we honestly ask the Lord to reveal things we have not let go from our past or dreams and hopes we are tight-fistedly holding onto for our future.  The wounds we never allow to heal from our past prevent us from using those as lessons in order to turn our past into opportunities to help someone else that is going through the same difficulty today.  The hopes and dreams we have do not need to hold our present in bondage if we allow the Lord to have those.  The harder we grip the less energy we have to live our today.  The harder we manipulate and work to have those dreams come to pass, the less we enjoy living our today.  We will never truly know if those dreams are planted in our hearts by the Lord until we release and allow God to fulfill his timing and his purposes in our lives. 

For me, I am learning there is a freedom in realizing I don’t have to know my future but rather trust that God will direct my current today to join paths with my future hopes and dreams.  Today I want to be open and prepared to hear God speak or see Him move in me and those around me.  Who knows, someone I come across today just may be that divine appointment from God to give clarity of his purposes for either me or them. 

Don’t dismiss the ‘outside’ appearance of a chance meeting.  God sometimes uses the most unlikely candidates to speak into each other’s life.

Philippians 1:6,2:3-4; 3:13; Jeremiah 29:11