"There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.." - Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV).
There was once a child who was given a prized ball at Christmas. He loved his ball dearly that all he did was to hide it in a safe corner under his bed. When he would go out to play his friends would ask for the ball. He would wave them off that his parents had locked it up, though he had it. The boy feared letting go the ball for it would be soiled with dirt, wear out and perhaps burst. It lay untouched.
One day he decided to check on his ball. What does he find! Rats had been slowly chewing on it- that it had all shriveled up and quite useless. The boy regretted that if he had only let the ball go much earlier- he would have had a game with it, unlike now when he lost it without ever enjoying it!
A young Moses was quite anxious to liberate the Israelites from the bondage of the Egyptian oppressors. One day while out he decided to take matters in his hands. "Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand" (Exodus 2:12). When word got to Pharaoh, Moses had to flee, to avoid being killed.
Forty years down the road, having long let go of a matter that once consumed his life to a point of taking a life, God lifted Moses up out of a bush. "The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come downtown rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians" (Exodus 3:7-8).
The Moses story is about a young man who held on to a vision and wanted to achieve it all through his might. However, when he let go, and was out on his own, apparently having forgotten all about it, God came and lifted him, "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt" (Exodus 3:10).
Perhaps in your life there is a matter that you have been holding on to and nothing seems to be progressing, and you are all restless. Why not just let go, and have the Almighty God take over, for you may be surprised what happens then!
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I decide to let go that matter since troubling me, that your will is done as you please, this I pray in Jesus's name.
Related upcoming events
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19/04/2024 - 20/04/2024 All day“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” ( Isaiah 43:19).
Just before fire was unleashed down on Sodom and Gommorah, Lot was told to pack up with his wife and two daughters and leave their homestead. Now, once out of danger, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” ( Gen 19:26). Perhaps here we might pause and ask why she was bothered to look back.
Of course it could have been that old “curiosity killed a cat” mistake! Yet, it could also have been Lot’s wife was not sure where she was going and longed for her old life back. This is a common error. There was nothing stirring to look back. Just before Lot’s neighbors had attacked his house eager to rape his visitors. “They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them” ( vv 5). Was there anything worth looking back to!
The case of Lot’s wife could be anyone else’s experience. The Lord has plucked you out of some mess. You have been delivered to a new life. Yet, somehow you decide to look back, as though there was anything good and worth longing for. Sometimes it is a bitter past you have been delivered from. Other than rejoice in your new blessings you keep being drawn back!
A wise caution goes, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” ( Proverbs 26:11). If the Lord has just led you out of a certain mess why look back like it was much better! Instead look ahead, for “he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” ( vv 17- 18).
Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, I thank you for delivering me from the darkness of the past and I look forward to a bright new future in you, this I pray in Jesus’ name!
