Going or staying
I believe that exercising is good for me. The faith, or belief, that exercise helps to keep me healthy gets me going, off my couch and into the gym, or onto the beach to run. But once I'm actually on the treadmill - what keeps me running onward, when my breath is short, and my legs are burning? That same belief, which got me going, keeps me staying too.
I remember something similar when I first started chasing after my wife. At some point, I decided she was the one. That faith, or belief, got me going. I don't know if things are same in these trigger-happy Whatsapp times, but I definitely remember sitting and staring at the telephone for what seemed like hours, sometimes even dialing 7 out of the 8 digits (or was it only 7 digits at the time?!) and then being unable to hit the last digit to connect the call. But I believed she was the one. And so *beep* went that last digit.
Pretty often, after all that agonising, it would turn out she wasn't even at home XD
So what kept me staying on this path? The same belief - that she was the one. Called again. And again. Visited her when she was volunteering on the Doulos - the mission ship. Bought chocolates. Went to the library to study knowing she'd be there (even though I'd barely seen the inside of the library for the first 2 years in Uni!). Refused to give up even when I bought tickets to Les Mis and she politely declined but SENT HER MOTHER to go with me to watch it instead :O
What about at work? Same thing. I spent 7 really fulfilling years in the Legal Service putting bad guys behind bars, and thoroughly enjoying the cut and thrust of criminal litigation. I was good at my job, and I knew it. But I wasn't a scholar, so... you know, not so easy to progress in those days. So I prayed really hard, and sometimes, God says, scary as it is, you gotta go, and so I did. I left.
Within 2 weeks of my new job, I thought I had made a terrible mistake. My new boss yelled at me all the time. I didn't know what I was doing. I was routinely working 16 hours a day. I was literally interviewing for a new job within 3 months, and I actually got a better offer somewhere else. But God was clear - He doesn't make mistakes. So however awful I felt, I had to stick with it. And after what seemed like forever (though by His mercy, it was really only just over a year!), and just when it seemed nothing would change, lots of things suddenly changed in the office. As it turns out, most of the rest of my career has been in this very area, and it has been an amazing, humbling and satisfying journey of learning, even to this day.
Hebrews 11:8-10 describes how Abraham was called by God to leave his home and go. Go where? He didn't know. Verse 8 "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going"
Then in verse 9-10, "... even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith - for he was like a foreigner, living in tents... For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God."
Faith caused Abraham to get going. But when he got there, he had to slum it, living out of a tent for decades. Yet the same faith caused Abraham to keep staying - because he was looking forward to something he knew God had planned as his inheritance.
I heard this other quote this weekend "Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care [or beware] of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God's hand gives the impulse and direction." Alexander Maclaren.
In our personal lives, in our relationships or in our careers - are we waiting for the next opportunity, or the best opportunity? And while we wait for the best opportunity, are we grumbling about what we lack, or what we used to have?
Like the Israelites who wandered the wilderness after they had been delivered out of Egypt by Moses - they grumbled for food, and God provided food. Yet when God provided food, they grumbled for better food! They grumbled for God's direction, and God provided Moses and the pillars of cloud and fire. Yet when God made them wait while He spoke with Moses, they came up with a golden calf idol! In their impatience for more, and more now, they missed the greatness of the opportunity before them - that God's very presence was accompanying them as they wandered!
"Whenever the cloud lifted from above the tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. At the Lord's command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped.
As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord's order and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord's command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out.
Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. At the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out.
Numbers 9:17-23
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