Audio length: 9:40
Download Audio (8.8MB)
God is my strong fortress, and he makes my way perfect.—2 Samuel 22:331
*
In all of nature, I don’t know of a more determined creature than the North Pacific salmon when it is returning to its place of birth.
Born in fresh water, these particular salmon migrate to the ocean and return to their birthplace three or four years later to reproduce. That may sound simple enough, but in fact the journey, which can be as long as 2,000 miles (about 3,200 kilometers), is unfathomably difficult.
No one knows for sure how the salmon know how to get where they’re going. Some researchers believe they are guided by a magnetic field, while others believe it is the salmon’s keen sense of smell or an imprint in their brain of the chemical makeup of the water at their birthplace. However they find their way to the exact spot where they were born, their Creator has equipped them for the task.
When they reach the mouth of the river where they entered the ocean years before, their journey becomes even more difficult and perilous. It’s all against the current now. As the river narrows to a tributary and then to a stream, at times the salmon must force their way over rocks and through raging rapids.
Then there are the bears that line up along the shallow, narrow, rock-filled streams to grab and eat as many salmon as they can, one after another. And bears aren’t the only predators. There is also a gauntlet of humans with nets and hooks. But the salmon will not be deterred as they struggle to clear every obstacle between them and their goal.
I greatly admire the salmon’s do-or-die spirit, and I remember them when my own energy wanes or some goal seems to be slipping away. I remind myself that I too have been equipped by my Creator to take on life’s challenges.
I too am destined to return to the birthplace of my spirit, heaven, and my Creator has given me an inborn homing device to help get me there. It’s not like the salmon’s auto-pilot-like system in that I have to choose to switch it on, but my link with Him through prayer is just as sure and His guidance is just as clear and specific. He promises in the Bible, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know,” and, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”2
I also have to do my part. I have to keep swimming and fight the current, even when it would be so much easier to turn around and float downstream. But as I keep going in the right direction, that voice gets stronger. “Don’t stop! You’re almost there. You’re going to make it. You’re doing great!” As long as I listen to and obey that voice, my inspiration and strength are renewed. Like the determined salmon, I’m going to keep going until I reach my destination!—Martin McTeg
*
There’s a navigation technique [which sailors use] that … has also pointed me generally in the right direction in life. The concept in sailing is known as “dead reckoning.” The idea is a simple one, so it’s right in my wheelhouse. It involves using your compass to take a bearing off a couple of fixed points and then drawing a line from each one to you in order to determine where you are.
When I don’t know the answer to where I am or what God wants me to be doing, which is often, I try to get a bearing on at least a couple of fixed points that I can trust. One is Jesus. I know it sounds like a canned Sunday school answer, and I tend not to like those, but it’s true. I take a bearing off what I know about Jesus. But it’s a Jesus who isn’t encumbered by religion, denomination, and cultural overlays. I look at what He had to say about where I am and then I draw a line from Jesus to me.
The other fixed point I use is a group of people I feel God has dropped into my life, kind of like a cabinet. These people have their particular areas of wisdom and experience, and I use them to bounce ideas off of and get their input. In turn, I’m on the cabinets of many of my friends and family members too.
From these points, dead reckoning is actually pretty easy. I’ve made refinements and countless midcourse corrections in my life. There have been more than a couple of times when I’ve navigated potentially disastrous issues and needed more exact and specific direction. And when I did, I had the resources I needed to figure it out. But most of the time, even though … some religious people would squirm, just pointing in the right general direction has been good enough. I think that’s probably because I see myself floating in a massive sea of God’s love. The circle of His grace and forgiveness is big enough and the line leading to Him is long enough that I don’t need to always be measuring latitude and longitude to find myself. It’s a pretty easy calculation each day actually. I’ll tell you how I do it. I find Jesus, keep pointing toward Him, and stay somewhere in that circle. That’s it.—Bob Goff3
*
It has all got to be a work of the grace of God. Your work for the Lord, your daily tasks for the Lord, your thoughts and your love for Him and for others and unselfishness and sacrifice and a life of service, all of it is by the grace of God! What is the verse? “Faith which worketh by love.”4 It’s God’s work! You have to have the faith that God is going to do it through you.
For years, I was convinced that I was nothing and nobody and could never do anything. I didn’t read the Bible enough and I didn’t pray enough. I was devoting my full time to the Lord’s work, but I wasn’t the kind of saint that was always on his knees and always reading the Bible and always praying, totally separated from this world and totally saintly and good. How could I ever do anything for God?
I wanted to be something for the Lord and do something great for the Lord. But it was easy for me to think, “I’m too sinful; I make too many mistakes. I’m nobody. Look, I’m not doing anything to speak of, just peddling tracts and getting kicked in and out of church after church!”
Be honest, that’s the way you feel sometimes too. But “It is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me! And the life I now live, I live by the grace of God!”5
Isn’t it wonderful that you can just trust the Lord and not worry? You worrywarts, quit worrying. Trust the Lord, He’s going to do it. Of course you can’t do it, but the Lord will help you do it. Don’t worry about it. I’ve had to tell almost everybody I work with that at some time or other: “Stop it, quit worrying about it! Of course you can’t do it. The Lord is going to do it through you!”
You can in Christ! With the help of Jesus you can be anything, do anything, and go anywhere God wants you to !—David Brandt Berg6
Published on Anchor September 2013. Read by Bryan Clark.
Music by Michael Dooley.
1 NLT.
2 Jeremiah 33:3; Isaiah 30:21.
3 Love Does (Thomas Nelson, 2012).
4 Galatians 5:6 KJV.
5 Galatians 2:20.
6 Originally published June 1985.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment