icebergThe other morning I cried out to the Lord about what is going on in my life, how He was not using me as I expected, and why things were not happening faster or in a bigger way in my life…Sadly, I was actually complaining out of fleshly discontentment. But the the Lord is so gracious and loving, rather than being upset with me in my impatience and frustration, the Lord answered the cry of my heart with a simple question, “Do you want what you think you can see in the life of someone else, or what I have for you in your life?” He showed me that His work in my life was like an iceberg, only about 10% is visible on the surface. But if I would step back and not worry about how it “looks” from the top, He would continue to do a wondrous work below the surface, out of sight. I realized I must lay down what I am not seeing and trust that He is working and using me as He said He would use me.

If God is to get the glory, then who are we to demand that we “see” the works in our life. A single word spoken to one person could change the lives of hundreds by word of mouth alone. We need to realize that by living our lives committed and surrendered to Jesus Christ is the best “ministry” and “work” we could ever provide to the world.

One of my favorite movies is Facing the Giants. In one of the scenes the janitor gives a Word from the Lord to the coach, instructing him to prepare for the harvest, even before he can hear or see the rain. This is  a great example of the Lord telling someone they need to stand on what He has already told them and “believe” it will come to pass. If the Lord tells us to prepare our fields for the harvest, then we must prepare our fields in faith, even before we see a single rain cloud in the sky. We are not in charge of the soil we till or the seeds we plant or the garden we work or the field we harvest or when the rain will fall…He is. If we are to walk by faith, then we need to believe His Word will not return void and that He will bring the harvest in the right season, His perfect season.

Everyone who desires to be used mightily by God will have times when they cry out to the Lord and ask why they cannot see Him doing “BIG THINGS” in their life. Why they cannot see Him using them in a BIG way like they believed He would…Or why they have not seen Him “move mountains” in their life like they know He can. Often when He plants BIG dreams and goals in our hearts we must go through a “preparation season” before He is able to use us according to His plan. This season can seem like it goes on for a very l-o-n-g time. We may feel “stuck”, like we will never move forward toward our dreams. The question we keep asking is, “WHEN GOD, WHEN WILL YOU USE ME IN A BIG WAY!!!” What we need to remember during these seasons is that we will never see the full picture, we need to believe there is 90% that we cannot see below the surface even during this season.

The Lord sees what is in our hearts, whether we are truly taking Him at his Word, or are we doubting Him in our human wisdom. If He tells us He has answered our prayer, do we thank Him for the answer and go out in faith to prepare our field for rain, or do we stay on our knees and keep asking until we can “see” the answer?

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