In 2014, I felt so related with people whom Pastor Steven mentioned in the book.
I started by saying "I didn't want this" and then ended up joining the club.
I started by saying "I didn't want this" and then ended up joining the club.
Club of people with "wasted faith".
I was an idealist, I came up with my own "formula" of how God works or would work and if something doesn't happen, you need to fix the mistakes, they aren't on God for sure.
It happened to me and guess what, I spent months living in the accusations I directed towards myself (and devil conveniently joined the party).
Many Christians believe what I believed and they still do.
But as I grew up, I met an end of this belief system.
No matter how spiritual you are, there are things you will not understand.
This fact left me at a loss for words, that God does not reveal EVERYTHING to you.
I believe that's what makes God (not us) God and us to have more compassion rather than callousness by judging people.
If you are following God and you feel out of place, you are not alone.
Hope you receive something through message excerpted from "Greater" below:
Sometimes people hear from God, or think they hear from God, and they burn their plows. Or they dig their ditches. Or they pour the one jar of oil. And instead of being given beauty for ashes, they are given ashes for ashes. All they seem to get for burning their plows is the smell of smoke in their clothes. All they seem to get for digging ditches is muscle spasms for weeks to come. And pouring out their little bit of oil doesn't fill more vessels but only wastes what precious oil they had to begin with.
When God asks for something and you don't get anything back, it can feel like sacrifice. Or it can feel like you just got robbed.
I know a guy who felt certain God had called him to fulltime vocational ministry, so he quit his comfortable job in the music business. He wasn't chasing fame and fortune. His heart was as pure as it could have been. But his decision cost his family dearly and created tension between him and his wife. After years of languishing, long after burning every plow he ever had, he went back to his former business, embarrassed and unrewarded. He had to provide for his family.
One of my closest friends in ministry and his wife have been married many years without children. For years they longed for kids, but finally they came to feel at peace with the idea of never having any. Their lives have been rich and fulfilling, populated with many spiritual sons and daughters. They were content with the apparent fact that biological parenthood was not God's route for them—until people all around them began to share words of alleged prophecy from God about the child they would bear. Sincere women regularly accost my friend's wife, asking if she is okay with not having kids. Some who barely know her ask if she has physical issues that keep her from having children. As their family, or lack thereof, has become a regular topic for everyone from parishioners to visiting preachers, they say it's getting hard to be okay with it anymore. And still there is no child.
I could share hundreds of heartbreaking stories about unfulfilled desires in the lives of believers. When you're a pastor, you wade waist deep in them every day. But some stories hit closer to home than others. And whether you can relate to their specific struggle or not, I think you'll find something to relate to in the story of the Bishops.
When God asks for something and you don't get anything back, it can feel like sacrifice. Or it can feel like you just got robbed.
I know a guy who felt certain God had called him to fulltime vocational ministry, so he quit his comfortable job in the music business. He wasn't chasing fame and fortune. His heart was as pure as it could have been. But his decision cost his family dearly and created tension between him and his wife. After years of languishing, long after burning every plow he ever had, he went back to his former business, embarrassed and unrewarded. He had to provide for his family.
One of my closest friends in ministry and his wife have been married many years without children. For years they longed for kids, but finally they came to feel at peace with the idea of never having any. Their lives have been rich and fulfilling, populated with many spiritual sons and daughters. They were content with the apparent fact that biological parenthood was not God's route for them—until people all around them began to share words of alleged prophecy from God about the child they would bear. Sincere women regularly accost my friend's wife, asking if she is okay with not having kids. Some who barely know her ask if she has physical issues that keep her from having children. As their family, or lack thereof, has become a regular topic for everyone from parishioners to visiting preachers, they say it's getting hard to be okay with it anymore. And still there is no child.
I could share hundreds of heartbreaking stories about unfulfilled desires in the lives of believers. When you're a pastor, you wade waist deep in them every day. But some stories hit closer to home than others. And whether you can relate to their specific struggle or not, I think you'll find something to relate to in the story of the Bishops.
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"Everyone experiences what seem to be unanswered prayers. But in God's economy, no one's faith is ever wasted.
God is working on our behalf even when our prayers don't seem to be working at all. Maybe one day we’ll see that the greatest setbacks in our lives were actually the greatest setups to seeing God’s glory in places we didn’t even know to look"
- Steven Furtick
"Everyone experiences what seem to be unanswered prayers. But in God's economy, no one's faith is ever wasted.
God is working on our behalf even when our prayers don't seem to be working at all. Maybe one day we’ll see that the greatest setbacks in our lives were actually the greatest setups to seeing God’s glory in places we didn’t even know to look"
- Steven Furtick
