Judges 7:2 The LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’
What difference would it make in our pulpits if young adults going into Bible college trusted the Lord by faith beginning with tuition and living expenses? What difference would it make in your own life and your own walk with Christ if you trusted Him when you faced an insurmountable obstacle?
Back in the spring, I had an exhibitor’s booth at a church conference. A person approached me and began to tell me stories of family members and friends who had been called to ministry or missions, went away to Bible college, landed in student loan or other debt, and abandoned the call to seek employment in a secular field to attend to pressing financial matters. There may be several things going on here that deserve attention, however, I am going to focus on the question: “What difference would it make in our pulpits if young adults going into Bible college trusted the Lord by faith beginning with tuition and living expenses?” A very related but much more personal question is, “What difference would it make in my own life and my own walk with Christ if I trusted Him when I faced an insurmountable obstacle?”
We can get caught up in the insurmountable challenges the people faced and how God miraculously brought them to safety, and it is good for us to be reminded of how God can work in our lives. But, there is real danger in what a friend of mine calls presumption – an expectation that God is going to do a certain thing regardless of what we do.
Bible college or theological seminary is essentially unavoidable if you want to enter into ministry or missions. All church denominations, ordaining bodies and mission boards require some level of Bible, ministerial and theological education, and there is a cost to obtaining that education.
Do you believe God is not aware of that? Throughout the Bible we have accounts of people going through a period of training before embarking on the task God laid before them – Moses, Jesus, Paul, John the Baptist, Elijah, and so on. Do you think God forgot or is caught unaware of the educational requirement?
Let me draw your attention to Exodus 15:22-24, “Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’”
When the Lord calls us to a task, He makes the way possible. Too often we are guilty of coming up against an obstacle and trying to barge our way through, thinking that this is the next step and I have to be getting at it right now. Right now!! We tend to grow impatient and formulate a plan to forge our own way through the obstacle. For Bible college, that could be making a choice on the college, degree program, and borrowing or committing to borrow money for the tuition, room and board.
One of the key lessons I learned from studying the exodus is that when we come up against an obstacle the Lord would have us bow the knee. In Exodus 15:22-24, we see the opposite – the people grumbled. Their grumbling emanated from a place of doubt and distrust of God. It also emanated from a place in their hearts which presumed that if God parted the waters of the Red Sea then He would also provide everything we need precisely when we need it. In other words, there would be no trials, no difficulty and no waiting. The Lord would have had clean water waiting for them when they pulled into camp.
Such thinking is unreasonable and illogical, which essentially describes doubt. The Lord opened the door for our family to enter full-time ministry and called us to trust Him by faith to provide for our needs. The first time we had a need bigger than our resources, I gathered the family including our young children in the living room and read Exodus 15:22-24. I asked the question, “What did God want the people to do?” One of my children answered correctly and said they should have trusted Him.
So, what difference would it make in our pulpits and on our mission fields if our young adults and those called to ministry trusted the Lord for every need from day one? I believe the difference would be remarkably immense! Why, I believe it would enliven our pulpits and bring a renewal of faith among congregations. I believe it would get more people on their knees, strengthen relationships with the Lord, and spill over into how we conduct our every day lives. I believe at some point it would become our testimony and witness in the world, and the world would begin to see another great awakening.
Instead, we have young adults entering the ministry who, when faced with an obstacle, employed worldly means to overcome it. There was no looking to the Lord to provide or waiting on the Lord to open that door. God does want us to achieve the education this world has to offer. But, God also has His own school.
When we overlook God’s school and overcome obstacles with worldly means, our pulpits become dead because the minister’s heart is hardened to the Lord. When the Lord provided an opportunity to grow the minister’s faith, beginning with education, he or she rushed ahead of the Lord. Lest I be guilty of pointing fingers at others, I must confess that I have done it too. I ran ahead of the Lord, and I can tell you that it had disastrous consequences. And that is part of the reason I write this, because I hope to challenge others to avoid the same painful mistake. I also write this to spark a revival that begins behind the pulpit and a revival that begins in your own heart.
“O Lord, send a revival … and may it start in someone else.” We would prefer God just send a revival. Very often God does answer our prayer, but He descends on us as the source of the revival. If you are not open to His penetrating gaze into your heart, it could very well deaden your ears to what He wants to do in you and mean lost souls remain lost without hope of the heaven we wish for ourselves.
So now we come to the question, “What does God want to do in your situation right now?” If God has called you to the ministry but the door is not yet open, what does He want to do in you right now? That’s the topic of the next article.
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