Yesterday was a bad day. I felt lousy at the very beginning of the day. I have been struggling with feeling effective lately. I feel like most things I've done lately have failed and not been very effective. I have felt like a failure. Yesterday was one of those days, from about 6 in the morning until about 6 last night 12 hours of hearing in my spirit and feeling like I didn't matter, no one was listening and I was a failure. Then last night God began to get my attention.
He first reminded me of two men in Scripture who from the world's view point may not have been great successes either. The first one was Noah. Yeah, I know Noah obeyed God and build the big boat and saved his family. 2 Peter 2:5 tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and in Genesis we are told that it took Noah 120 years to built the ark. So Noah preached for 120 years and not one person outside his family ever responded. God never changed one other person other then Noah's family through his preaching. Noah would never have been asked to speak at some huge nation wide preachng conference if he would have lived today. Noah would not have been written up in Christianity Today. Noah would not have been asked to share the stage with Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or Billy Graham. God reminnded me that Noah was not from the world's perspective a success.
Then God reminded me about Jeremiah. Jeremiah the weeping prophet. He ministered for 40 years with no success. Jeremiah was laughed out, put in prison, publicly humiliated and even physically harmed. The nation didn't listen to what Jeremiah was preaching and the nation was carried into captivity because of their disobedience to God. Jeremiah's preaching did not to change that.
Yet both of these men are held up in Scriptuure as great men of faith and models for us to follow. God reminded me that what pleases Him is not success, effectiveness or ability. It is obedience. Obeying God is what He has commanded us to do and it is obedience that pleases Him.
Another thing God did yesterday was to remind me that it is not about how I feel. My feelings are not always an accurate measurement of the reality of the situation. If I live based on my feelings they may lead me away from God's will not towards God's will. I knew that how I was feeling was not what the reality of the situation was. I allowed God to not let me go with my feelings. I through the work of the Holy Sprit chose to obey based in my will not my emotions.
Then God did a truly gracious thing. I had shared with a person last week and I felt (again those feelings) like I had not help him at all and then as he and talked last night, he shared how God had used our time together to help him deal with his struggle. God was again telling me it is not about me, it is all about Him!
For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. Colossians 1:16 (The Message)
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
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