MORE GIFTED MEN AND WOMEN THAN US… HAVE QUIT!

What answer do you have for the question of QUITTING?

Why hang in there in your walk with God, or in the ministry he has placed you, when others fail you, falter in their values or fall in their character? What are you confront the bad things that happen to good people? Or, when you hit (again) the hard stuff Jesus promised would occur (John 16:33)? What replaces the desire to “throw in the towel,” especially when Jesus calls you to pick up the towel and serve? It’s a crucial question! It’s one of those questions we each need to answer, if we are going to keep running the race set before us!

Let me ask this same question another way…Does your life have a sense of DESTINY?

Many of you may have seen the movie 42! 

If you haven’t seen it, you should. Robin and I loved it! It is the story of the American Baseball player, Jackie Robinson, who broke down the walls of segregated, white, professional baseball in America. As you watch his story unfold, you realize it is not a baseball movie. It is a visual portrait of one person’s growing awareness of the fate in life that had fallen to him, and his choice to step into and accept his lot. The movie served as a reminder, for me, again, of the issue of destiny, and how life is about more than life!

DESTINY refers to those experiences in which God supernaturally enters the picture and connects dots. A sense of DESTINY typically unfolds over a lifetime. It refers to that which leads a person to believe that God has both purpose and design to life, far greater than his or her plans. Destiny experiences is when God encourages his follower’s that there is a plan, a bigger story. DESTINY is not a new age term.

SO… WHY NOT QUIT?

We learn an important truth from the research of Dr. J. Robert Clinton and his book “The Making of a Leader.”  Leaders (and Christ-followers) who “finish well” evidence a growing (that being the key word) awareness of their sense of destiny.

The two men in the Bible that most evidence DESTINY would be JOSEPH and PAUL.  Joseph in the Old Testament and the journey from being sold into slavery to the role of Sec. of State of Egypt. The Apostle Paul in the New Testament and his dramatic destiny moment and conversion and his set of destiny experiences that led the Gospel to the Gentiles.

God is at work unfolding a sense of destiny in each of our stories. Our stories are part of his greater story. The grand narrative. Each of our lives has design and purpose. The question is not whether God is at work. The question is whether we see what He is doing.

My Case in Point: BASEBALL

It was my (Terry’s) dream to become a professional baseball pitcher in America. It is the same dream of many a young boy here in the States, but I carried it strongly with me all the way through University. I believed it was my destiny as I played baseball for the small Christian college. God moved in on my dream. He set my life in a different direction. It resulted in me attending Bible Seminary and into Pastoral ministry (go figure). Deep inside I somehow knew that there was something more for me than throwing a baseball at opposing hitters, but early on I wanted something different than ministry.

While working at the Billy Graham Crusade, held at Anaheim Stadium in 1984, God powerfully moved in and connected some of my dots. As I sat in the first base dugout, replacing the discipleship coordinator for that evening, Sandi Patti sang “How Great Thou Art!” It was if all of us who listened were being ushered up to heaven; an incredible moment

As we broke into thunderous applause for our God when Patti concluded her song, tears streamed down my cheeks, and then I heard God speak deep into my heart: “See I got you here! You just got here my way!” My heart was deeply warmed. He had been at work, seeding it all along, but in that moment I grew in my assurance that something greater was occurring in my life. A growing awareness of my sense of DESTINY!

Has life all worked out for you after that, Terry? NO!  Do you now know how all of this will play out in the future? NO! Does what you experienced happen so dramatically for everyone like that, Terry?  NO!  Well what do you know? What I know is that the farther I go, and the more he unfolds His story into my story, the more I believe that there is a growing sense of purpose to my life, far beyond my early designs.

Does your life evidence a growing awareness of your sense of DESTINY? 

Have you joined ranks with the Abrahams, the Esthers, and the Peters of our day? Do you believe (like Esther) that God placed you in this place… “for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)  That God has created you to… do good works which He authored before  (DESTINY) time began. (Eph. 2:10). He has.

Do you have a sense of destiny? Do you want your life to? Love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment!

 © Terry Walling 2013