God Means It For Good

I attended Passion 2010 this past January. While I was there, I had to privilege to hear Beth Moore speak. If you have never heard Beth Moore speak, then you do not know what I am talking about, but have you ever listened to a speaker that was just so on fire, so passionate, so transparent, they were so difficult to understand? Well, that was Beth Moore. Her voice was so high and loud that it actually was hurting my eardrums.

Fortunately for me and for those who are reading this, I bought the DVDs of all the main sessions and I was able to go back and listen to what she said last night. Here is my take away:

Hebrews 13:21: May the God of peace...equip you with everything good to do His will. Equip was a word back then that had a much, much broader meaning, which includes things like to prepare, to repair, to restore, to mend, and the list goes on a few more words. So that one root word for equip meant so much to the Christians back then.

God's plan and God's will for you are not the same. His will is the end result of your life, and his plan is how He gets you there.

With these two concepts in mind, what does that mean? Well, the largest chunk of time Beth used was to talk about how our past experiences were used by God to PREPARE us for the ministry that lies ahead. She uses the abuse she had in her life, and tragedy in her husband's life as examples of how, without those things happening to them, they would not be the people that they are today.

For many of us, we think of the awful things we went through growing up or that we are currently going through and we think of them as unfortunate, aggravating, "why me" moments and we tend to have those things weigh us down. But what God does is He takes those bad circumstances and teaches you the things you NEED to learn before you can do the ministry he has called you to.

Don't. Let. Your. Hardships. Bring. You. Down. Ask yourself instead, how is God using this situation to reshape, rework, restructure, or mend me? Are you finding joy in your circumstances (James 1:2)? I pray that, if you are finding it hard to accept this thought, that you find God in your trials. Whether it is financial, or your family, or a relationship, or your job situation, or if your pet died, or if you have a fever, or if you lost someone you love, God wants to shape you into the image of his Son.

Remember Joseph in Genesis 37? The story of betrayal and slavery that ended up in Joseph's reign in Egypt culminates to this lovely line in Genesis 50:20

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Whatever life shoots at you, I hope you memorize and rise up to this verse everyday, and from now on you may see these hardships as an opportunity to be more like Jesus.

Being equipped always,
chase