Chasing the Beautiful God

I was arrested by a passage this past week, stumbled upon a truth that hit me in the face and made my heart beat faster. This reality pierced my heart because of the simple fact that I want my life to have impact. Deep down I long for these breathes that I’m taking to mean something and if I can do something that will cause things to change on the earth then perhaps deep down that longing will be somewhat satisfied.

That longing is pretty natural. God put it there and He didn’t just put it in me only. I think He put it in just about everyone in some form or another. Anyhow, the Lord took me back to 1 Samuel this week. 1 Samuel 3:1b says, “…And the word of the Lord was rare in those days, there was no widespread revelation.” In other words, there was something wrong in the land even as there is something wrong in our land if one has but a modicum of spiritual discernment in this hour of history.

If there’s something wrong then we need to DO something, right? We need to set up something that will cause change. We need to go about making an impact. But that’s not God’s strategy. When there’s something wrong with His nation, God’s strategy isn’t to raise up a program or an organization or even a great leader. Not first and foremost anyway.

1 Samuel 3:1a says, “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli.” “…Samuel ministered before the Lord…” 1 Chronicles 16:4 describes what it means to minister to God: “…to commemorate, to thank, and to praise the Lord God…” At the end of 1 Samuel 3 (v. 19, 20) we read the result of Samuel’s ministering: “So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the Lord.” In other words, the word of the Lord came to the nation once again.

From the simple act of ministering before the Lord for decades, the wrong in the nation was righted. From Samuel came the school of the prophets (1 Samuel 19:18-20; 2 Kings 2), came David (1 Samuel 16), came the Tabernacle of David (Psalm 132; 1 Chronicles 16), came Solomon, came the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 8), came a nation so prosperous that gold and silver were as common as stones in the streets of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 1:15), came Jesus. From one boy who ministered before the Lord came a nation totally transformed in spiritual and physical prosperity and the future of mankind restored to hope.

God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours. Our way is to rush out to DO and to solve the problem. His way is to call us to sit at His feet and hear His voice and be captivated by His beauty…for decades. Oh the unique beauty of the ways of our God! In our hour of history He is calling His people to this ancient path once again. Something is going on in the earth. Do you have eyes to see it?

Joel Ratcliffe