Springing into Action

So—who is like me? Who holds a candle to me?’ says The Holy One. (Isaiah 40:25, MSG)

Have you ever been to a soccer, football, baseball, or hockey game and sat in the bleachers? Do you remember the feeling of cheering for your team? Do you remember when they made a mistake and how you might have wanted to step in and help them? Or maybe when they made a great score and you jumped for joy? Do you remember that moment in time?
I can think back to many of these moments in time, but in each one I was a spectator. I was sitting in the bleachers. I was on the bench. I wasn’t on the field or on the ice playing the game. I didn’t know the impact of scoring or the impact of making a mistake like the players did. Some of you are wondering where I’m going with this analogy, and I can tell you this has been running through my mind a lot lately.

We as Christians have become spectators in the spiritual battle that is going on around us at all times. We have become content to sit and watch everyone else fight the battle at hand but are afraid to get our hands dirty. But when we least expect it, something happens that causes us to jump to our feet into action. We are faced with the realization that we need to respond to the war being fought in front of us. Why is it that we have become reactive instead of proactive? What has happened to make us so nonchalant in our approach with God and His spiritual territory?

Yesterday, as I was traveling on a plane to the East Coast I was faced with a very real dilemma. I saw what I have been struggling with play out in front of my eyes, and all of a sudden it all made sense to me. I have made God so tiny. I have taken from Him the territory that is His and have not prayed as fervently as I can. I haven’t been as faithful to Him as I can be. I haven’t laid down my pride as often as I should, and I certainly haven’t held my fellow Christians accountable as well as I could. I have messed up. You see there is no one like God. It is true; no one can hold a candle to Him. He lights the way! He is remarkable and clearly does not need the help of you or me. He is the great I Am.

So what happened yesterday; what was this great dilemma? Well, to many it will not seem like much, but to me it hit like a ton of bricks. I was on the plane, and at this point we were already an hour and a half late getting off the ground, but I was okay since I was enjoying time with the Father. Then as I was sitting on the plane, I started to think about how these last couple of weeks I hadn’t spent time in prayer for my trip. I hadn’t asked God to prepare me for the opportunities to come while I would be traveling.

You see, normally I pray that God will give me opportunities to be a light while I travel and share His love with anyone I come across, but somewhere along the line I lost track of time. I lost sense of what was important, so there I was on the plane with my face in my hands praying for God to forgive me for not having my eyes open and praying He would use me in the rest of my traveling time. It wasn’t much later that something very unique happened.

The whole trip had been very turbulent with storms raging all around. What a perfect fitting for a girl writing a book all about life’s storms. The seatbelt sign was on, and every passenger had just been asked to stay in their seat by the pilot. We had about forty minutes before we would land. Unfortunately, one passenger found his needs to be a little more important than the next forty-minute timeframe. He got up from his seat and opened the compartment above the seat across from him. To his dismay a tripod came flying out and hit a little old lady underneath.

Just seconds before, the two were strangers, and there was peace. But now a true storm had broken out, and two strangers had found a reason to bridge a gap that earlier seemed like mere space…

(An excerpt from my book His Hope for your Destiny by Sarah Beth Lindberg)

Have you ever wished you could take back the last moment in time? Are you waiting to spring into action? The Lord wants to use you. The time for you to be active in God’s plan is now, not later.

Dear Father God, I pray that I will be active in all that You have called me to do. May I seek Your face and live my life for You in the fullest way possible!

Springing into Action,