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Good Friday to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends;
All this week we’ve been looking at various ‘tests’ which we face in our life journey which provide opportunity for God to grow us or the devil to derail our lives, depending on the choices we make in those situations.
Today let’s consider the ‘TEST of FINALLY’. Sometimes we wait a long time for something, anticipating it greatly. When finally we receive it how we respond to it can be very significant in our lives, and reveal what’s deep in our souls. Here in Florida where I live, ‘retirement’ is a good example. All around us are thousands of people who have moved here as they finally achieved ‘retirement’, and now their lives are entirely different from what they were for the more than 40 years of their working life.
Suddenly most retirees are faced with two great questions: First: “Who am I now? or “What is my identity now?” For most people, especially working men, their identity has been their vocation, their job. They normally spent 50 hours a week or more commuting to and working their job. Most working people find some degree of fulfillment in their work, and suddenly it’s gone. The search for a new identity is often an unexpected challenge in this “Test of Finally” for retirees, especially early retirees.
A second big challenge new retirees face is: “What will I do with my time now?” Tennis, golf, swimming and boating, fishing, traveling, and many more long awaited activities are wonderful… for a time. But a surprising number of retirees find self-indulgence is only a temporary fulfillment. Down deep in most people is a desire to be productive. A church I know, not far from where I live, has found a solution. They invite retirees to gather together and use their talents to make things, with their own hands, which they then package in ‘shoeboxes’ for the annual Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child project.
Hundreds of talented retirees spend several hours per week, all year long, using their creativity with crafts and woodworking skills making little things that poor children, in far away desperate places will, enjoy. Last year this one church produced enough materials that they packed more than 22,000 shoeboxes! The fulfillment these dear retirees have found is amazing…as they use their time and talents to serve poor kids in far away places that they’ll never visit. . .all in the name of Jesus!
For a younger generation perhaps a driver’s license is a good example of the ‘Test of FINALLY’. When finally a young person is handed their own driver’s license and especially when they have their own car, there’s a tremendous newfound sense of independence. What they do with that independence very quickly reveals some things about their values, their self-discipline, their respect for other drivers, and much more.
In God’s Word the Bible we have many examples of the “Test of Finally”. Abraham and Sarah waited a long, long time for the birth of their miracle son Isaac, and Genesis 22:1 says: “Some time later God tested Abraham. ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain I will show you.” I doubt any of us can imagine the agony, the confusion old Abraham must have felt as he wrestled with this message from God. It was so contrary to anything he could imagine, after waiting so long for Isaac to be finally born. That chapter gives us a remarkable story and Abraham comes to know God in a new way, with a new name “Jehovah Jireh”, the LORD who provides. That place, by the way, the tip of Moriah, is where the Temple eventually was built in Jerusalem, and from that spot, only a few hundred yards away, can be seen the ‘hill of Golgotha’, the place where God the Father sacrificed His only Son Jesus, for the sins of the world, on the cross of Calvary.
Another “Test of Finally” was the priest Zechariah and his dear wife Elizabeth. Good, God honoring people who were old, well past childbearing age, yet had prayed earnestly for a son who could continue their priestly legacy. In their disappointment of no son, I see no evidence of bitterness. Rather when Zechariah is praying in the temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him to say “Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the LORD… He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring to the Lord their God…” (Luke 1:12-17)
That miracle son born in their old age, was John the Baptist. While we do not have any specifics, we can assume Zechariah and Elizabeth spent countless hours teaching John God’s Word and preparing him for his unique role in our world of being the fore-runner, the announcer, of Jesus the Christ.
So how, my friends, are you waiting for God to do something in your life situation? Have you been waiting, maybe even praying for a long time? How have you handled the waiting? What is God teaching you in the waiting? And when whatever it is you’re waiting for FINALLY arrives, how will you respond?
Here’s my summary statement for this TEST: Danger: Long awaited answers can be worshiped and thus suffocating OR they can direct us to worship God; they can be strategically used by God in our lives and teach us great life lessons.
In closing today, I invite you to ponder these three verses which guide us in the “Test of FINALLY”, and give us the antidote, which is waiting patiently:
“Show me Your ways, O LORD,
Teach me Your path,
Guide me in Your truth and teach me,
for You are God my Savior, and my HOPE is in You all day long.” (Ps. 25:2)
“Teach me Your way O LORD and I will walk in Your truth,
give man an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name.
I will praise You, O LORD my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify Your name forever.” (Ps. 86:11)
“Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart…
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him…” (Ps. 37:3,7)
Oh Lord Jesus, thank You that You enable us to wait with PATIENCE, as we keep our eyes on You, trusting that YOUR time will be best for us. Help us, Holy Spirit, with this matter of an ‘undivided heart’ while we wait. And when FINALLY You bless us, O God, with something for which we have waited a very long time, please help us savor it in proper perspective, recognizing YOU have supplied it to us for our good and for the growth of our faith, and for Your glory!
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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