Friday, May 16, 2014

May 17, 2014

"The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them." Exodus 3:7-9

Here are two things that can lead to your spiritual undoing. One is contentment and the other is discontentment. Contentment leads to becoming stale and discontentment can lead to becoming stupid.

Given the two, choose discontent because God can use it. He can't do much with contented people.

Moses was a Hebrew living in Egypt so discontentment came with the territory. But his discontentment got the best of him and brought out the worst in him when he reacted in anger and killed the Egyptian taskmaster. That stupid act born of frustration and discontentment turned him into a fugitive in a foreign land. It moved him from the palace of the pharaoh to the pastures on the backside of a dessert.

That's where the story takes a wonderfully unexpected turn!

Now that Moses had found some contentment as a family man working for his father-in-law, God revealed Himself to Moses through a burning bush. And guess what? God told Moses that He, too, was discontented with the plight of the Hebrews, His people, in Egypt and it was time for Moses to do something about it! God tapped into Moses' brewing discontentment and called him to do now what he had failed at doing decades earlier. He, Moses, under the hand of God would set His people free from the bondage of Egypt!

God called and gave him a new vision for his life. And when He did, it was at his point of failure and frustration and discontent!

Moses served a God Who was big enough to turn his failures and his frustrations into one of the greatest upset victories in all of human history! He raised Moses from a discontented loser to a world-class leader! That's just Who God is and how He operates!

If you are a follower of Christ you are a Hebrew in Egypt and discontentment will be your lot. Understand God has stirred this discontent within you. It is a holy discontent. If you will surrender that to Him and if you can be content in His timing, He WILL cause a new vision and a new calling to arise from that discontent. A when it arrives in your mind and your spirit it will come with passion and power!

How you handle being contented and how you handle your discontent will determine the extent to which God will be able to use you!