Serving God's Purpose, part 4

The same could be said for each one of us. Why were you born into the family you were born? I believe it’s because you gained something from your family upbringing, whether that was good or not, which is necessary for you to serve God’s purposes to your generation. Not everybody’s family experience was or is pleasant but that doesn’t matter – that’s really not the point. The point is this: you are who you are, and you experienced what you did, because God has a purpose for your life. 
 

One of the verses in Job that really intrigued me is in Job 33:14 “For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it.” One of the points I like to try to make is how often God answers prayer in ways that we do not recognize because we are quite sure how He should answer our prayer. I mean, we’ve laid the situation out before the Lord, we’ve given Him good instruction as to how He should handle this, we’ve most assuredly impressed Him with our wisdom and compassion and then we think He’s not answering us because nothing seems to be happening regarding our prayer. 

Generally, God answers prayer in a way that brings glory to Him rather than us – and that’s what messes us up. We tend to think that if only God would do it my way, then everyone around me could see how spiritual I am! The problem comes back to this issue of cultivating the heart. Sometimes, when it comes to leadership; God must wait until the cultivating is finished before He can use a person. And many times, cultivating means broken, shattered, torn-apart, and then put back together, so that the qualities God put in you can finally be put to His use. 
 

Consider Jacob and Esau for a moment. God chose Jacob over Esau, not because of Jacob’s goodness, but because of Esau’s weakness. Esau was not the type to allow his heart to be cultivated. God was narrowed down to these two sons in carrying out the promise of Abraham. Jacob was contemptible in his moral dealings. 

However, he had the qualities of leadership (which were completely lacking in his older brother Esau). Jacob’s moral character was a serious hindrance. God had to deal with him in almost inconceivable ways to finally get use of his strong mental capabilities. His body had to be weakened before his mental power would yield. 
 

After Jacob deceived his earthly father and stole his older brother’s birthright, the sentence upon his life seemed quite stiff. He was sent away never to see any of his family again for over 20 years. He never saw his mother again at all. His life was spent in hard servitude. He had to come face to face with God in a wrestling match before he was willing to submit, and even then, not until God touched his hip socket and knocked it out of joint so that he walked with a limp the rest of his life. 

The short of it was that Jacob had leadership qualities but he was stubborn. Stubbornness is strength not strong enough to yield. Stubbornness can be an excellent leadership quality once it is yielded to God. Then it is no longer stubbornness; it’s submission. Stubbornness yielded becomes submission. And every good leader operates from a position of submission. 
 

Do you know what it means to be stubborn? In the New Testament the word stubborn is translated “hard hearted.” So when you read the words, “hard hearted” you could substitute the word “stubborn” there. Its Greek meaning is someone destitute of spiritual perception. Every one of us has qualities that God could use, but because of a lack of spiritual perception, i.e. stubbornness, we often fail to serve God’s purposes. 
 

Though Jacob was chosen to be a leader of his people, it took God twenty years to get Jacob to “see” it. Hardheartedness equals stubbornness, which equals the lack of spiritual perception. Jacob spent twenty years in hard labor because he refused to submit to God. I’m not trying to relate all hard labor jobs to the lack of spiritual perception. I’m merely relating to Jacob’s case where God was trying to get a spiritual message to him and it took twenty years for him to finally yield to God’s purpose. And even then it wasn’t until there was a knock down drag out fight with God. (Let me just add here that having to have a knock down drag out fight with God is NOT something one would brag about.) 

Continued tomorrow