“God never wastes a hurt. In fact, your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.”
-Rick Warren (from the book “The Purpose Driven Life”)
This human experience is filled with mountains and valleys. The older I get the more I realize this. I believe if the average senior adult were to divide the mountain top experiences, those euphoric moments that we so fondly recognize as joyous life events, from the valleys – the darker times when we walk through the basin of the shadow of death – the mountain top experiences would be more numerous in the earlier years and the valleys more frequent in the later years.
I kind of wish that wasn’t the case, but let’s face it. Life can be hard. Perhaps that’s why so many people don’t finish strong.
Howard Hendricks, long-time professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, states that there are approximately one thousand leaders mentioned in the Bible. We have only sufficient data on about one hundred of these individuals in which to draw insight and conclusions on their lives. Of these one hundred leaders, Hendricks declares that only about one third of them finished strong. Their worlds were rocked by the same things yours and mine are; death of loved ones, anger, career disappointment, regret, betrayal, and the list goes on.
Many people don’t finish strong because they never recover from some of the valleys they pass through. Actually, some don’t pass through; they choose to stay there. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Take Moses for example. He was raised in the splendor of the Egyptian court as Pharaoh’s adopted son, where he got a great education and the “royal treatment.” Here was a guy headed somewhere until one day when his anger got the best of him. He saw a Hebrew slave being beaten by an Egyptian master and he intervened, killing the Egyptian (see Ex 2:11-15). He then fled for his life to the desert where he wound up tending flocks of sheep in the wilderness.
What is interesting, as Dr. Hendricks points out, is that Moses’ time in the desert – his “valley” – is where he got his greatest education. Some forty years later God called him to lead the Hebrew nation out of Egyptian bondage and through the desert. What seemed as the curse of exile to a barren region became the training ground for his “second act,” what we know him best for.
What has put you in the desert of life? What mountain have you slid off of, and what valley do you now find yourself in? Alcoholism, a failed marriage, children that have gone astray, an abortion, a bad financial decision, health issues, a career crises, feelings of insignificance and lack of purpose? While you may be stuck in the wasteland of despair, God is calling you out into the light of his love. If God can use a sheep-herding murderer to fulfill His promises to His people, He can surely use you and me. Moses’ sinful act caused him to run from God, yet God’s redemptive act in Moses’ life caused him to run to God.
The Lord wants to redeem His creation, and we are His most prized creation. He is calling us out of the darkness and into His light. Forget your past; God has. Don’t choose to stay in the valley or the desert; get on with your “second act.” Take action by trusting Him. The Lord has great things in store for you. Your greatest ministry lies ahead of you.
Play to win this week in the game that really counts!
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