Look for the Incidental Things
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:15-16 (NKJV)
The Lord is not just working in the essential and the crucial areas of your life, but is also working in the areas of your life that are incidental.
There are so many things that are crucial and essential in our lives. For example, my primary education was essential for sure—reading, writing, math—but it was the soft elective of music that introduced me to the man who would then introduce me to Christ. The result would be the trajectory that led me to ministry, which became both my passion and my profession. History, science, and language were essential courses for me to take, but the incidental addition of choir being on my class schedule became the catalyst for my yielding eventually to the call of God on my life.
Some of the most significant aspects of our lives begin with the incidental, the things that happen en route to a place, the discoveries that change your life while searching for something else.
Don't just look for God in the essential areas of your life. Don't just look for God in the crucial areas of your life. Don't just look for God in the necessary areas of your life. But look for God also in the incidental exposures and encounters and exchanges in your life. The impact from these areas can inspire others, change the landscape, bring glory to God, bless lives, and extend the witness of Jesus.
God puts blessing and power and resources in these incidental things that are happening to and around you every day. And here is my strong encouragement: Learn to look for them. Stay discerning about them so that you can steward them faithfully. See them as God moments, opportunities to grow spiritually.
The Real You
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites.
Matthew 6:5 (NKJV)
The story is told of a grandmother, a mother, and a little boy—three generations together—who decided to go to a restaurant. They sat down to order, and the waitress took the grandmother's order, then took the mother's order, and then turned to the little boy and said, “Young man, what would you like?”
The mother immediately said, “Oh, I'll order for him.” This is typical and, in many cases, necessary. But the waitress that day, without being rude, ignored the mother and said again to the little boy, “What would you like?”
Glancing over at his mother to see how she was reacting to all of this, the boy said, “I want a hamburger.”
“How would you like your hamburger? With mustard and pickles and the works?” asks the waitress. The little boy’s mouth dropped open in amazement. He replied, “I want my hamburger with the works.”
She went over to the short order window and hollered in the grandmother's order, then hollered in the mother's order. And then in a very loud voice, you could hear her say, “And one hamburger with the works!”
That little boy then turned to his mother in utter astonishment and said, “Mommy, she thinks I'm real!”
I encourage you today to live your life trusting that your real self is enough. Your real self is sufficient. Your real self is gifted. Your real self is blessed.
The real you is enough. It might not be enough for some people, but Jesus teaches it is sure enough for Him.
The real you is valued. The real you is worth listening to. The real you is worth being loved. The real you is enough.
Moments Matter
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
John 1:40-42 (NKJV)
Moments matter, don't they? They matter in our journey to spiritual maturity.
But more important than seizing moments or responding to moments or showing up for moments is discerning the meaning of moments.
I’ve had a lot of moments in my life, and many of them have been powerful, impactful, inspiring, and motivating. What is significantly important, however, is whether or not I develop the spiritual capacity to discern the meaning of a moment.
Andrew was a faithful disciple of a powerfully spiritual and impactful preacher, John the Baptist, who was unusually gifted. Andrew was deeply devoted to John's ministry, and it significantly impacted his life. And yet, when Jesus passed by, Andrew heard something in John's voice as John proclaimed, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Andrew sensed something in the moment. He discerned the depth of its meaning. And for Andrew, his interpretation was this: “I've been listening to the wilderness prophet all this time. He has significantly impacted my life and added quality to my lived experience, but this is a moment, and I can't stay here. I can't let this Man pass by, because what just happened revealed the meaning of John's whole ministry.”
John’s role was that of a forerunner, and Andrew picked up on that. Andrew thought, “This moment means something for me spiritually. It requires that I make a critical decision. Even if I make the decision by myself, it is forcing a change to where I rest my attention and where I plant my devotion. I cannot let it pass. I cannot treat it as casual. I’ve got to leave John and go with Jesus, even though nobody else is following Him yet. The moment is too meaningful for me to pass up.”
Are you able to discern the moments that truly matter in your spiritual journey?
An Incorrect Assumption
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)
Are there things in your life that you assumed would be easy because you believed the Lord commissioned them? Perhaps He has released a vision to you or put a certain idea on your mind or placed you where it was obvious you were being purposely and providentially planted, As a result, your assumption was that the right doors would easily swing open, and the people connected to where you needed to go were just going to make things simple for you and get out of the way, and there would be an open platform and pathway for you.
But it doesn’t always happen that way.
It becomes confusing, doesn’t it, to be right in the center of God’s will, and yet things are not going smoothly in your attempts to do what He’s told you to do. It’s not progressing fast and easy. People are not falling in line quickly enough. Recovery is taking longer than you thought it would.
What makes it more theologically frustrating is when these have less to do with the enemy trying to oppose or confuse things and more about the Lord's timing and His will, providence, desire, or movements in your life.
In those times, can you set aside your expectations and trust God?
I'll confess, I carry many expectations for my life: things that I know God can do and believe He will do in my life. But when these things don’t happen, I think, “What’s up with this, God? You have always responded and intervened before. So what's up with this late arrival or this locked door? I don't get it.”
The Lord has challenged me on these occasions that His part (the timing and the work and the power) is easy. The difficulty revolves around my part: the need for me to grow.
Be careful not to make your expectation an idol. Don't start making your expectation a god and then expect the Lord to bow to it. Don’t let your expectation become bigger than your trust in God or your surrender to His will.
Why Philip?
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
John 6:5-7 (NIV)
Any of us who have been in church for any length of time have heard the story of the feeding of the five thousand. It is purposely angled to reveal the power of God, to reveal the compassion of God, to reveal the goodness of God and the abundance of His blessing. It is also intended to reveal the human temptation to think too small.
In reading this account again recently, something else caught my attention. I wondered, Why Philip?
Why did Jesus specifically ask Philip about where to get bread for the people?
He engaged Philip in particular because of something rather incidental. Philip, of all the disciples, knew the area best. He was from a little fishing village, Bethsaida, on the northeast shore of lake Galilee—near to where they were. Philip knew the survey of the land, the access to provisions, and the places where bread might be available.
Philip knew that this size crowd would be unable to find sufficient bread in the few local bakeries of the small neighboring villages. This incidental knowledge that Philip possessed of the area where is why Jesus asked him and not any of the others.
Philip’s knowledgeable response removes all doubt, for both the disciples who were listening and for the readers today, that there was no possible way, humanly speaking, that they could feed a crowd so large.
Jesus knew that Philip would offer the response, “We don't have enough money to purchase bread for all of these people.” And Jesus knew that from that response, He would then work a miracle that would amaze some, convict others, and convince many that He was, in fact, the Son of God.
How can your knowledge, your expertise, your words be used to point people to Jesus?
