Thought 281
Drafted or not
Will you serve Jesus
right now or are you waiting around to be drafted?
Often we human beings just sit around and
wait for a miracle to happen. We may wait for a supernatural incident in which
God does a miracle or in which an angel will give us a specific task to
accomplish. Or maybe we try to never pick up the Bible and read it to know it,
but rather we let others endlessly give us their views of it; and all they
while we really have no grasp of the Scriptures to discern whether they are
right or wrong. Please don’t misunderstand me, God has sent us great teachers,
evangelists, pastors, and countless others with great insight into HIS Word and
He has done this for our benefit, but don’t you think that sometimes we put
more weight in what others or what someone says than what the Word says, than
what the Holy Spirit has taught us through personal application and study?
I have been told many
times “you should go into the military!” Why? Because people look at my “discipline”
or “accomplishments” or hobbies or “leadership abilities” and automatically
make a military connection. The truth is I don’t have peace about the military
or many of the other jobs that others have ‘suggested’ to me: that includes:
biology, law, conservation, Microsoft, psychiatrist and others.
First
off, let me define what I mean by peace.
God has given me a call to ministry and I have a peace about it. Now this peace
is not un-prone to discouragement, fear, embarrassment, or anything like that. This peace is a deep knowledge which passes
all understanding—no matter what happens: no matter what obstacle I face I know
that the Lord is with me. Humans often think that peace, joy, and faith are
some mysterious, unconquerable, superhuman key to life—but that belief has no
Biblical roots. If we are searching for the ‘keys’ to an easier life, we won’t
find them. I still have to battle the fear of public speaking before speaking
to a crowd (sometimes it is harder than others), but God has given me the inner
peace that this is what I was meant to do. That ‘peace’ is not unconquerable
though. If I concentrate on things other than what the Lord has given me to do;
I can very easily entertain the Enemies lies in my thougths and get
discouraged, doubt, worry and even make errors in my speech and actions.
For a long time I played the ‘this is what I
want to be when I grow up game’ and I would believe Ya! This is it! But time and time again it proved wrong, false, and
untrue. But in ministry I found purpose, not because I thought it up and stuck
to it, but because the Lord called me to it. I don’t always have a feel-good feeling because nothing like that exists
all the time. We will all get discouraged at times, that is a simple truth and
reality, if you thinking otherwise you might want to ask a friend to slap you
and then see if you still ‘feel good.’ What God gives a person to do is not
always “ministry” related. It could be entrepreneurship, car selling, managing,
stock broking, teaching, etc . . .
I’ll be honest here, sometimes when I don’t
have peace about something, I answer in the wrong way like the following: I
have told certain friends and relatives in the past that the only way I am
going to the military is if I’m drafted. That was not a proper response and I
primarily said it out of annoyance. Do you have the same attitude with God and
are you saying I’m not going to do it (what God has called you to do) until I’m
drafted, and even then I am going to do everything I can to get out of it? Are
you truly waiting to be “drafted or not”?
