Living Before Destiny

Living Before Destiny June 30, 2016

Hello Destiny Concept
Hello Destiny Concept

When I’m not pretending to be J.K. Rowling with a pious side — not that I’m saying J.K. Rowling isn’t pious, I really have no idea, she was just the first author that came to mind — I’m a coach and consultant who is obsessed with helping people uncover the destiny God has waiting for them, like a present on a dusty shelf just waiting to be brought home, wrapped up, and given away to its perfectly suited owner.

 

And when I say obsessed, I do mean obsessed. On the business side of things, I totally geek out over things like The Patterson Process and StratOps. Seriously. Anything that helps a team of people work better together gets me going.

 

My husband has been in London for the past few days learning all about the Agile Methodology and I can’t wait for him to come home and tell me all about it. I can’t help but wonder if Moses had had StratOps and Agile if that whole wandering around in the desert thing would have been way more productive for him.

 

With my personal coaching, I always want to make sure my clients are working on purpose. I want people to be asking the big questions, going after the big goals, making themselves throw up in their mouths a little bit because they realize that they are being called to big, God-sized things.

 

And when I think about this, I think of Gideon, who was the least little brother of the least-est family in the least-est tribe, or something like that. One day, he’s just sitting under a tree, taking a rest from his work of threshing wheat, when God shows up and says, “Hey there, Great and Mighty Warrior! God is with you!”

 

Gideon looks up, his roasted pine nut hummus and pita chip snack halfway to his open, waiting mouth. He closes his mouth decidedly, and starts looking around for the great and mighty warrior, first to one side of him, then to the other, eventually craning his neck to look behind him.

 

Then God says, “Dude, I’m talking to you.”

 

That got Gideon’s attention. And what I love about Gideon — what I love about so many people in the Bible who maybe we have distorted into these awesome people but really were just sarcastic, cynical hot messes like the rest of us — is that he responded with a faith-filled, “Yeah, right.”

 

I often complain about the communication system God has set up, saying that this whole Holy Spirit thing can be truly unreliable at times. There just never seem to be enough bars, and I feel like God’s walking around with his cell phone up to ear saying, “Can you hear me now?” 

 

But the truth is, even if there was an angel of the Lord standing right in front of me, all shiny and sparkling like I imagine an angel would be, I’d probably just assume it was a drag queen who got lost on her way to the East Village. I doubt I would actually believe that God had called me to do something special.

 

Gideon responds in pretty much the same way. God’s with me? Really? If that’s true, why does everything suck so bad?” It was true — the Israelites had once again ignored God and were paying the price for it, being overrun by a nasty crowd of invaders who decimated their crops, their livestock, and left them in extreme poverty. The God of Gideon’s ancestors, who told him stories of miracles in the desert, seemed to have packed up and left.

 

Really? Gideon was saying. If God is with me, where’s MY miracle? I don’t believe it. God has nothing to do with me. 

 

Haven’t you ever felt that way? As if you know there’s something more to this life, something that you’re supposed to be doing, an existence that’s more fulfilling that just spinning out stuff other people will take and consume? But you feel stuck, and worst of all, you feel as if God is nowhere to be found, and has nothing at all to do you with you.

 

God’s back can be cold.

 

But here’s where it gets really interesting: Gideon says to God, Hey! God! You turned your back on me!

 

And what does God do? He turns, and looks Gideon straight in the eye.

 

Then he says something really, really interesting. He says to Gideon, “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?” (For some reason, whenever God talks in the Old Testament, I hear Jackie Mason’s voice in my head).

 

Here is what I imagine Gideon saying at this point: “Go in this strength that is yours? Really? That’s all you’ve got? What about that whole idea of where I am weak, you are strong? Isn’t there some inherent promise in there that you’ll step in with your strength and save the day? But you’re saying, go in my strength?”

 

Gideon tries to explain to God that he’s the runt of the litter of a runt-sized clan, and who is he to go save Israel? But God was having none of it, and insisted that Gideon, and Gideon alone, would save the day. So Gideon did what anyone would do in this situation — he killed a goat, baked a ton of bread (like, seriously, a ridiculously huge amount) and made some soup. Then he brought it all back to God, and laid it out on a rock.

 

Then God took a stick, touched the meat and the bread, and it all went up in flames while God slipped away. But finally, Gideon was convinced that it had been God who called him.

 

His response? Oh, crap!

 

Which would pretty much be my response, too. In fact, it has been my response. When I’m called to do something big, something uncomfortable, something I feel completely ill-equipped for, I’ll often wake up in the middle of the night out of a sound sleep going, “Oh crap! God’s serious about this!”

 

And I want to insist on a miracle. I want to say to God, “Hey! God! Part that sea, please, so I can walk on through. Heal that old, annoying wound already, would you? Hey, could you turn this stick into a snake, just for a quick sec, so I can get this annoying person off my back for a hot second, and then you can turn it back to a stick and we’ll be good.”

 

And God says, “Nope. You’ve got to do this with the strength I’ve already given you. This strength that you don’t really think you have, that you hardly use, that you hide in a hole under a tree, because you have this story in your head that you are the leastest of the least. But I call you a Great and Mighty Warrior. I am going to show you that I have already given you what you need. Haven’t I sent you?”

 

Here’s the thing, though. Eventually, when it came down to the big thing that Gideon needed to do — the text clearly says that God’s spirit came over Gideon. So what’s with the whole do it yourself thing?

 

The first thing Gideon had to do — and he had to do it in his own strength — was face down a culture that had erected an altar to Baal. He had to tear down that altar and build a new one in its place to the one and only true God. He had to step out into the open, wide open spaces, where people might see him, might know his heart and his faith in God.

 

He had to stop caring what people thought of him. He had to believe that God had equipped him when he didn’t feel equipped, and he had to believe God would show up if he needed him. He had to let God be first in his heart, societal pressures be damned, and THEN God would show up.

 

And show up, God did. He reassured Gideon — for some reason using some dew and a fleece, because, you know, that makes total sense — and got busy reducing Gideon’s army so that no one could say the victory was their own — they’d have to give credit to God. And Gideon’s victory was swift and glorious.

 

I wonder what it felt like for Gideon to be on the other side of that victory. Did he remember what it felt like when he was sitting under that tree? When he was living before his destiny?

 

Personally, I know I’m living out my destiny, but that doesn’t make it easy, and it’s been a faith walk to get me this far. It’s been a step out in faith, trusting that God has equipped me when I don’t feel equipped, because that’s sort of like the God switch — that step out in faith, that willingness to put God first, to tear down the altars to fear and what people think of me and my own ego — that switch in my heart makes the space for God to show up big in my life. And he does it, every time.

 

If you’re living before your destiny, I encourage you: find the altar on which you are laying your destiny. Break that shit down. Go in the night and rebuilt your heart for God, and then let the people look. Let them see it all.

 

And then, just watch what God does.


 

Obviously, I paraphrased a whole bunch of scripture here. You can read Gideon’s story in Judges 6; my favorite version of the Bible is The Message.

Also, because I’m truly passionate about helping you find your destiny and live in it, not before it, I’m teaching a class in September.

PATHEOS readers can get a special deal on the class — either a significant discount, or a free coaching session with me. You can check it out here

 


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