A few weeks ago I finished reading Chasing Daylight
What makes this story so interesting are the circumstances under which Jonathan decided to act. So often we want God to speak in a booming voice, giving us explicit instructions about what we are supposed to do next, but God doesn’t always work that way. In 1 Samuel 14:6, Jonathan says to his armor bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.” He didn’t have an assurance from God that everything would be okay. God didn’t give him a 10 point battle plan. Jonathan did what he believed was right, and God honored his faith and his action.
We see a similar story in Judges 6 and 7. God told Gideon that Gideon would save Israel from the Midianites, and so Gideon went to fight the Midianites with an army of 32,000 men. But God said that Gideon had too many and sent 22,000 of them home. God said that there were still too many and left Gideon with a mere 300 men…
…and no plan.
While had God very clearly told Gideon that he would conquer the Midianites, God didn’t spell it out. He simply told Gideon to go fight and then took away 99% his fighting force. Gideon had only 300 men left, and we have no record of God telling him how to defeat the Midianites with such a small complement. Gideon had to forge ahead into battle, trusting that God would fulfill his word. While the Israelite army surrounded the Midianite camp and blew trumpets and broke jars, God caused the men in the Midianite army to turn on one another, delivering the army into Gideon’s hands.
What has God told you to do? Is there something that He’s laid on your heart? Has God given you a passion for AIDS victims, for underprivileged children living in the ghetto, for the homeless, for prisoners, for victims of war, for battered women, for the fatherless? Are you waiting for God to tell you exactly what to do next before doing anything at all? Have you been sitting on this passion for years without taking any action? Perhaps God isn’t going to tell you what the next step is. He might not spell it all out for you.
Even if you don’t feel like there’s any one particular thing that God wants from you, there are plenty of things that He has already told us to do: feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, care for widows and orphans, preach the Gospel. I don’t think God is going to get mad at us for doing the things that He has already commanded. If you start a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a prison ministry that changes the lives of many, I have a hard time picturing God coming down on your head because you missed His “true calling” for your life.
Perhaps the opportunities that you need to seize are not (on the surface, anyway) so lofty as these. If God has given you a passion for art or music or writing or whatever else, don’t let that passion go to waste. Glorify God by being a good steward of the skills and talents he has given you, don’t simply let them rot away in the ground.
Chasing daylight is risky. You run the risk of failure. We’re not going to succeed (by our definition of the term anyway) every time we step out in faith. Even when God specifically asks something of us, there’s no guarantee that we will achieve our goals. God may have other plans for our work. Perhaps your undertaking will serve only to teach you a lesson that God wants you to learn. Perhaps God wanted you to do it for the benefit of one person, and in this life you may never know what a success your “failure” was in God’s economy.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of a “failure” is the ministry of Jim Elliot. Jim Elliot, along with several others, was a missionary to a tribe in Ecuador that had previously had very little contact with the outside world. Jim and several of the men with him were killed by members of the tribe, and if you stop the story there, it seems as if Jim’s life was wasted. But the fact is, the story does not end there. Jim’s wife and daughter later went back to work with that same tribe and led many of them to a relationship with Jesus. Jim Elliot looked like a failure, but he died chasing daylight. And his work laid the foundation for Elisabeth and Valerie Elliot to carry out the dream that God had placed in him.
In fact, the redemption of mankind looked to be a failure when Jesus was crucified. The hope of all the world was dead. Because we know the end of the story we easily forget the desperate situation that the disciples faced when Jesus died. They couldn’t just read ahead three paragraphs to find out that everything turned out all right. The very Son of God seemed to have failed, but three days later, Jesus rose from the grave, having conquered sin and death.
I don’t have enough minutes left in my life to let them go to waste. Many of you know that God called me into ministry years ago when I was in high school, and you may also know that when I graduated from college I didn’t have many opportunities to fulfill that calling. But on Good Friday of this year, God renewed that call on my life. After months of trying to figure out how what to do next, I was presented with the opportunity to do a one-year internship program at my church. It was a hard decision. God didn’t come down and tell me to take it, and as excited as I am about the program now, initially there was part of me that really didn’t want it.
This will be my fifth internship in a church or ministry, and I had to swallow a lot of pride to become an intern again. At a point when I likely would have been advancing to a mid-level position I made a decision to go back to the bottom. However, I believe that pride is one of the reasons that God put me on a three year detour after college. He has been teaching me the hard lesson of humility. It doesn’t matter if I’m in charge or at the bottom of the ladder. It doesn’t matter if my name is in lights or no one ever knows who I am. What is important is that God is glorified and that the work of His kingdom is done.
Those of you who are reading this and who aren’t followers of Jesus may think that all of this is a crock of crap. In fact, I would bet that you’ve already stopped reading, but perhaps there is something you can take from all of this as well. I can only imagine that most of you, if not all of you, want more out of life. If you’re like me you are tempted at times to just sit back and watch the world go by, to come home from work, flip on the boob tube, and waste the night away, but isn’t there more than that? Help a child learn to read. Clean up a state park. Serve the families of soldiers who are serving overseas. I believe that total fulfillment can only be found in Christ, but you can experience the joy that comes from serving others. I think that we all know that there’s more to life than our simple lives behind our white picket fences.
So in other words, chase daylight. Seize your divine moments. Take risks. Grab opportunities. “Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.” You might not always succeed, but as Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
