The Challenge 19 – 20 November 2003

I have nothing really to report this week. Well, that’s not really true… life is still busy but the Holiday’s are coming and I’m really looking forward to them and some time off. Working a lot more lately… have been put in a new job as the temporary guy in charge and they “might” actually promote me to fill that job permanently. So, I’m excited and have been recharged at work lately because of that. Anyway, nothing really other than that to report…

Will send out an annual Thanksgiving Letter next week with President Washington and President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamations. They are from a time when the Government actually recognized that there was a God and He was supreme over all – including this country!

Watering Hole

As with all my Challenges, they are brought about by what God is revealing to me on any given day. The fact that He still reveals things to me is just amazing because I do not deem myself worthy of His revelation, so I am convinced that He does it for one reason and that is so that I can sit here and type it to you, encourage you, and challenge you to reach for the prize/run the race of endurance and persevere! I’ve also been challenged myself to maybe make these shorter and less overwhelming, but the truth be told, I’m not sure I can… what I can promise is that I’ll try to make it worth your while to read all the way through.

Recently, many of the Challenges I have been writing have been connections God has made between the Journey of Desire study my couples small group did a few months ago and the Experiencing God study we have been doing in Faith Development with the youth at my Church. Then I was talking to one of the young ladies in my faith development class (a new motorcycle fan) about a story I read and had to finish in the Journey of Desire workbook and suddenly the connection was made and this challenge was born.

The abridged story goes like this. There is a sea lion that lives at an oasis in the middle of the desert. There is a little shade and a small watering hole for him to cool himself off in. He doesn’t remember how he got there but he is constantly dreaming of swimming in the wide-open ocean. He has never been to the ocean; he does not even know what one looks like. All he knows is his small watering hole. He just knows in his heart of hearts that something bigger is out there. Sometimes, the sea lion thinks he wants to pick up and go find this ocean of his dreams and most times he is talked out of it by friends, distracted, or does not want to give up the comfort of his current situation. Over much time circumstances lead him to pick up and leave the comfort of his watering hole and search for the ocean of his dreams. The story ends there and the author does not ever tell you what happens. You have to decide what happens in the end. I’ll tell you the ending I wrote to this story later.

In our faith development study on Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby says that God is working all around you, that God invites you to join Him in His work, that God’s invitation to join Him leads to a crisis of belief, which leads to us to some action… either faith and obedience or some other action to not follow God. But in any case if you choose to follow God Blackaby makes a bold statement, which he backs from scripture; he says, “You cannot stay where you are and go with God!” Wow, do you really understand what that says? He goes on and explains:

“Many of us want God to speak to us and give us an assignment. However, we are not interested in making any major adjustments in our lives. Biblically, that is impossible. Every time God spoke to people in Scriptures about something He wanted to do through them, major adjustments were necessary. They had to adjust their lives to God.” (pg 122 Experiencing God Youth Edition Study Guide)

Think about that. Every time some big adjustment had to be made by the person God uses to do His work. No one could stay where they were in life and go with God at the same time.

Noah had to change his profession and build an Ark and move to Mt. Ararat.

Abram had to pick up all he had and go the land god would later show him. Could Abram have stayed where he was and gone with God at the same time. Nope!

Moses started to learn he was to free the Israelites and ended up having to leave the wealth and power of being a prince of Egypt. Then later in life he had to leave being a shepherd in order to go back to Egypt.

Peter and others had to quite the fishing industry. Saul had to quit persecuting Christians and the list goes on and on. I’ve looked. Every time in the Bible that God calls someone to do something they have had to make some major adjustment in their lives in order to follow God. I don’t want to rewrite all that Blackaby says in his Experiencing God study… it is good stuff. But suddenly it hit me; the sea lion’s watering hole is the thing that we need to adjust.

Obviously, the sea lion is you and I. We are stuck in a watering hole of some sort. We are “comfortable” where we are. I’m not just talking about physical comfort here. It could be comfort with friends, with our church situation (or lack there of), with some the sin we are doing, with our jobs, with our non-Christian friends, with some thinking we have about something, with the clothes we wear (for those fashion fans out there) or with a thousand other things. What ever it is for you, there is something that you are holding on to a little to tightly and has become your watering hole!

The sea lion struggles to leave behind his comfort because all he can see is the desert out there. What if I never see water again? I’d rather stay here and have water then have the possibility of never having another watering hole again… so he stays where he is for a long time just like you and I do.

What is your watering hole? What is it that you don’t want to leave behind in order to follow God? Do you really want to be used by God or is that something you just say to yourself? Read Luke 18:18-27. You and I think to ourselves, good story but I’m not that rich guy, right? Well, that may not be the point. Jesus points out the one thing that the man was holding on to that he did not want to release his grasp on. Jesus points out to the man his own comfort, his own watering hole. For him was money, what is it for you?

“So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." Luke 18:22

What is your watering hole? What is your one thing? Maybe there is more than one thing? Do you think that you can go with God and stay where you are at the same time? Do you think you can keep your old thoughts? Do you think you can keep your old sin? Do you think you can somehow compromise and still go with God? Are you the sea lion? Maybe that is what Jesus meant when He said:

“Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

In Journey of Desire, Eldredge brings you to the point where the sea lion finally decides to leave his watering hole in search for the ocean he was meant to swim in, and then he asks you to finish the story. My ending goes like this:

The sea lion walked for days but finally came upon a very large body of water. This new body of water was much larger than his old watering hole. He jumped in and thought this must be the ocean and spent many days there learning all there was to know in his new surroundings. Over time though the dreams of the ocean came back and he realized he had just found a new watering hole. Over his life he moved from watering hole to watering hole. Some he knew were watering holes right away, some he was deceived about for some time. Although he never found the ocean during his lifetime, he never lost his dream that he was created to swim in an ocean. One day he died and upon his death he found his ocean, the one he was made for, the one that was his to live in for all eternity.

This is a great portrait of our lives. We get stuck in our watering holes – the comforts of life. From time to time we get a glimpse of that ocean we are truly made for and we move on from that comfort level we are in and we grow and learn. We never stop battling against the deceptions of this world… the things it has to offer us… the comforts it affords… we never stop moving from watering hole to watering hole until the day we die and then we can have the true comfort, the perfect watering hole with the Living Water that satisfies all our thirsts! But during our journey through this world we have to recognize that we have to deny ourselves daily and follow after him. To do that, we may have to make some adjustments in life. We may have to move away from our individual watering holes that are so comfortable to us so that we can grow more like Christ every day until the day He reconciles us to Him!

What’s your watering hole?

Until next week ~ Dave

To make comments, to suggest topics you’d like me to tackle, to get past devotionals, or to be added to this weekly “devotional email” please write to: Dave Hansen at philip419@earthlink.net