Strategy in the Stall

When all you've got left is God

Scripture: So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. ____________ You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Consider: When Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit, his life seemed to collapse in that very moment. Betrayed by family, abandoned without rescue, and eventually sold into slavery, Joseph’s journey looked nothing like the dream God had given him or any expectation he may have had for himself. At first glance, this passage feels like a story of cruelty and family drama. But underneath what seemed to be a terrible outcome for Joseph is the deeper truth: God is at work in the pits and valleys as well as in the mountaintop experiences…sometimes it seems to be in the pit that we stop long enough to truly notice and take note of God’s work. Joseph had the dreams in hand, but didn’t have the understanding of how to make the dreams work for others rather than live endlessly on the favor and status he already enjoyed. Favor alone was not enough. The pit stripped Joseph of control, status, and certainty. There was no status that could rescue him in this experience. All he had left was God. That is often where surrender begins, in the lowest places where we have no other resources left. It quite often takes a stripping down of all our self-reliance to realize God at work in our world. In seasons of comfort, we lean on our abilities, our plans, and our confidence. But in the valley, we discover how fragile those things really are. The detour becomes the place where noticing, listening to and relying on God is no longer theoretical — it becomes necessary. The breaking of self-reliance often becomes the birthplace of spiritual maturity. When we recognize where our own abilities end, we can truly look to where God’s work is taking shape. The pit did not destroy Joseph. It humbled him, refined him, and positioned him for what was ahead. May we find the refining nature of God in the pits and valleys of our lives, not just on the mountaintop! Respond: What would it look like to surrender your self-reliance today? Think about how much you rely on your own thoughts, your own skills, your own ability to “make things happen” or “get your way” in order to move through your day…what would it look like/feel like to let go of that for just a day? Pray: God, when life takes me through valleys I do not understand, help me trust that You are still working. Teach me to surrender the illusion of control and depend fully on You. Help me trust that even painful detours will be used to shape my character and deepen my faith. Amen. These posts will always be free, however, if you find them meaningful and would like to consider supporting our online outreach, you can donate using this link. [https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church] https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wfpc.substack.com [https://wfpc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Strategy in the Stall

Scripture: While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said, “This is what you heard from me: John baptized with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” As a result, those who had gathered together asked Jesus, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Jesus replied, “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem—a sabbath day’s journey away. When they entered the city, they went to the upstairs room where they were staying. Peter, John, James, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James, Alphaeus’ son; Simon the zealot; and Judas, James’ son— all were united in their devotion to prayer, along with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. Consider: There are few places more frustrating than the shoulder of a highway. As cars zoom past at eighty miles an hour, you sit there, hazards blinking, watching your schedule disintegrate in real-time. Whether it’s a sudden flat tire, an overheated engine, or a flashing blue light in your rearview mirror, being forced to pull over is an aggressive interruption. It signals an immediate halt to your progress, leaving you stranded while the rest of the world keeps moving. In life, we experience spiritual shoulders all the time. You are cruising along, hitting your milestones, and executing your five-year plan perfectly. Then, out of nowhere, comes the forced stop. A sudden medical diagnosis, a corporate layoff, a broken relationship, or a season of inexplicable closed doors. Suddenly, you are sidelined. You watch your peers zoom past you in their careers, marriages, and personal achievements, while you feel stuck on the gravel, hazard lights flashing, wondering why your momentum was so abruptly stolen. Our natural reaction to the shoulder is anxiety and frustration. We view it as lost time. But in the kingdom of God, the shoulder is never a waste of time; it is a place of realignment. Human beings are obsessed with speed, but God is invested in strategy. We want the shortest distance between two points, but God sees the entire map. When He forces us to pull over, it is often because our current trajectory or timing is misaligned with His master plan. We think we are just late; God knows He is protecting us from a multi-car pileup five miles down the road that we couldn’t possibly see coming. Consider the life of Moses, who spent forty years on the backside of the desert—a massive, decades-long detour on the shoulder of life—before he was ready to lead Israel. Consider Joseph, sidelined in an Egyptian prison, or even the Apostle Paul, whose global missionary journeys were repeatedly halted by the Holy Spirit. In every case, the forced pause was not a denial of their destiny, but a strategic setup. When God pulls you over, it is an invitation to shift your focus from the speed of your life to the source of your life. It is a grace that detaches your worth from your productivity. On the shoulder, you are forced to realize that you cannot control the road, but you can trust the One who built it. He uses the quiet, frustrating stillness of the sideline to check your spiritual engine, realign your character, and fuel you with a perspective that prosperity could never teach you. If you find yourself on the shoulder today, take a deep breath. You haven’t been abandoned; you have been positioned. God’s timing is never late, and it is never accidental. He is preparing you for the road ahead, ensuring that when it is finally time to merge back into traffic, you are running on God’s power, completely aligned with a strategy that is infinitely greater than your own. Respond: Waiting can be frustrating, but when was the last time you chose to wait? We can actually learn to wait. You can put yourself in situations when the answer eludes you, at least for the moment. The next time you’re tempted to rush ahead to find out how a movie or novel turns out, slow yourself down and force yourself to focus on the situation as it unfolds. Maybe you’ll find a newfound appreciation for a style of writing or directing that otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed. Pray: God, when life takes me through valleys I do not understand, help me trust that You are still working. Teach me to surrender the illusion of control and depend fully on You. Help me trust that even painful detours will be used to shape my character and deepen my faith. Amen. These posts will always be free, however, if you find them meaningful and would like to consider supporting our online outreach, you can donate using this link. [https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church] https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wfpc.substack.com [https://wfpc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

New Wine, New Wineskins

Scripture: Some people said to Jesus, “The disciples of John fast often and pray frequently. The disciples of the Pharisees do the same, but your disciples are always eating and drinking.” Jesus replied, “You can’t make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you? The days will come when the groom will be taken from them, and then they will fast.” Then he told them a parable. “No one tears a patch from a new garment to patch an old garment. Otherwise, the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t match the old garment. Nobody pours new wine into old wineskins. If they did, the new wine would burst the wineskins, the wine would spill, and the wineskins would be ruined. Instead, new wine must be put into new wineskins. No one who drinks a well-aged wine wants new wine, but says, ‘The well-aged wine is better.’” Consider: Imagine in your head a giant sequoia tree. These massive trees are so big, roads have been cut through the middle of them, wide enough those cars can pass through with room to spare. This giant redwood tree lives hundreds of years, becoming so strong it can withstand almost anything which comes its way. But it’s size and sturdiness is not the most important or miraculous part of the tree. No. What is the most miraculous about this tree is that at its absolute center—the heartwood—is the original sapling. That sapling is still there, physically present in the middle of the trunk, not transformed or changed, but in it’s original form. The sapling from which the tree grew is preserved forever, right at its heart. However, as amazing and wonderous as that sapling may be, it existed in a world where a single heavy snowstorm or a hungry deer could have ended its life. It lived in a state of constant survival and shaded future, unable to reach towards the sun nor withstand the winds which shook its roots. It needed to surrounded itself with the protaction and growth of the giant tree in order to survive. The New Self of the tree is the towering bark and the massive branches that now touch the clouds. The sapling still provides the core and sits at the heart of this wonderous trunk, but it couldn’t possibly support the weight of the massive limbs or the complexity of the ecosystem the tree now sustains. The sapling was designed to survive; the tree is designed to endure. And so it is with us over time. We are made like this tree with a core which is valued, essential, and true. The core parts of what make us who we are, the person God made us to be, always remains at the center of our identity. But over time, God helps us grow wider, stronger, tougher. God makes it so we are more able, more capable of kindness, caring, and love. The heart of us stays the same, while the rest of us grows more into who God created us to be. The old version of you cannot contain the new work God is doing. We can’t go back to who we were then because we’ve been structurally changed; the old containers of our lives would literally burst under the weight of current grace. Growth and change are important because they make us more able to rely on and stand strong with God. Respond: When was the last time you checked in with your inner sapling? Instead of seeing “failures” or limitations as the end of the story, how could you use God’s creativity to help you find possibilities in this new surrounding? Pray: Father God, This way of faith is full of obstacles, and we are often discouraged when we can’t see the Promised Land beyond the next turn. Fill our hearts with your goodness, open our eyes to see, feel and taste your goodness that we may persevere in answering your call. In the name of Jesus we pray. These posts will always be free, however, if you find them meaningful and would like to consider supporting our online outreach, you can donate using this link. [https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church] https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wfpc.substack.com [https://wfpc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Exiled into Purpose

Scripture: This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Consider: There is a specific, hollow ache that comes when we realize the “home” we long for no longer exists. We aren’t just talking about a physical address or a childhood bedroom; we are talking about a season of life, a relationship that has fractured beyond repair, or a version of ourselves that has been permanently altered by grief. We look back, hoping to find a door, but the house we look towards is no longer there. The Israelites understood this displacement with a visceral intensity. When they were dragged into exile in Babylon, their identity was shattered. Everything that represented God’s presence—the Temple, the city of Jerusalem, the very soil of the Promised Land—was gone. Their initial impulse was to hold their breath, to refuse to unpack their bags, and to wait for a quick reversal of fortune. They wanted to go back. But God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, offered a message that felt like a betrayal: You aren’t going back yet. In Jeremiah 29, God famously tells them to “build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” The “impossibility of return” is not a punishment; it is often God’s way of clearing the ground for a new type of growth. When we are forced into a “Babylon”—a situation we didn’t choose and cannot escape—our natural instinct is to survive on the fumes of nostalgia. We waste our energy trying to reconstruct a past that God has already closed the door on. God uses the finality of our loss to force our eyes forward. When you cannot go back, you are finally free to look at the soil beneath your current feet, to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you” (Jeremiah 29:7). This is a radical call to emotional and spiritual investment in a place you never wanted to be. To “plant a garden” in your Babylon means: * Accepting Reality: Acknowledging that the old home is gone. * Investing Anyway: Pouring your love, your work, and your prayers into your current, imperfect circumstances. * Trusting the Planter: Believing that God is a “master gardener” who can make life spring from the most hostile environments. The Israelites thought “home” was a building in Jerusalem. God used the exile to show them that “home” was God’s presence within them. When the external structures of our lives collapse, we are forced to find the unshakable Kingdom of God that resides within. Respond: Consider today if you find yourself in a place where you cannot go back. What would it look like to look forward, not in despair but as an invitation to a new kind of fruitfulness. So today, stop staring at the locked gates of the past and pick up your shovel to plant your garden. Pray: Father God, This way of faith is full of obstacles, and we are often discouraged when we can’t see the Promised Land beyond the next turn. Fill our hearts with your goodness, open our eyes to see, feel and taste your goodness that we may persevere in answering your call. In the name of Jesus we pray. These posts will always be free, however, if you find them meaningful and would like to consider supporting our online outreach, you can donate using this link. [https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church] https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wfpc.substack.com [https://wfpc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Burn the Plows

Scripture: So Elijah departed from there and found Elisha, Shaphat’s son. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him. Elisha was with the twelfth yoke. Elijah met up with him and threw his coat on him. Elisha immediately left the oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and my mother,” Elisha said, “then I will follow you.” Elijah replied, “Go! I’m not holding you back!” Elisha turned back from following Elijah, took the pair of oxen, and slaughtered them. Then with equipment from the oxen, Elisha boiled the meat, gave it to the people, and they ate it. Then he got up, followed Elijah, and served him. Consider: My children are obsessed with the American Gladiators. I’ll admit to starting this obsession because obviously everything from my childhood was perfect and amazing and all the kids stuff now is terrible and awful. You know, typical old people reasoning. In the original series there was not a lot of safety equipment. They had foam helmets, elbow/knee pads, and mouth guards with not a lot else. They’d launch themselves off bridges and crash into the gladiators waiting on the other side wearing only a lycra tank top and shorts. It took a special kind of person to wrestle someone twice your size in skin-tight biker shorts. The modern version doesn’t allow for any of that kind of risk. The gladiators and contest are heavily padded. The games have a giant safety net underneath them, making it impossible to fall very far or very fast (though the editing makes it look like a tremendous and very rapid descent). The harnesses and wires are doubled so if one fails another is still there. The only thing they haven’t seemed to lock down is their shoes. Their sneakers always seem to be falling off. This safety-conscious behavior makes sense from a liability stand point, but it does fundamentally change the game. The contestants are physically stronger, but more cautious. The gladiators are bigger and more athletic, but limited by the equipment and rules which hold them back. The perceived risk is higher, but the actual risk is lower. It changes the fundamentals so everyone is more cautious, more hesitant, just a little bit slower and unwilling to try risky things. It mirrors our safety obsessed culture. Despite crime rates - and teenage pregnancy rates - going down over time, we are more scared than we’ve ever been. It’s still incredibly unlikely you will personally be the victim of random acts of violence, but the world would tell you there is a tragedy waiting to happen to you around every corner. And it’s bled over into our relationships and personal decision making. It is wiser - and safer - we think to stay on the well worn paths which we’ve always known. If I eat boiled chicken and broccoli every night for dinner, then I won’t gain weight. It’s certainly safer than risky than fresh cooked authentic Guatemalan food from the truck outside Home Depot. But we miss out on so much when we are afraid to risk. Elijah asked Elisha to risk everything he knew, the safety of his family home, and the certainty of the life he’d led to this point in order to follow God’s calling on his life. Our reasonable and safety conscious response would be to stay behind the oxen, digging the same old ruts we dug last year, planting the same seed we’d grown for generations. Elisha does the exact opposite. He not only drops his plow, he burns it for fuel. He not only stops his oxen from working, but cooks them and eats them. There is no safety net for him now, no place for him to return, no home for him to lay down his head if everything goes south. (I’m guessing on that last bit, but if you were his parents and he’d burned your cars before hitting the road, would you welcome him back?) God’s calling doesn’t come with any guarantees or safety nets, aside from the one God promises to provide. God often asks us to move away from our stockpiles and well-worn paths onto a scarier, but more fulfilling, path following God’s directions. It’s oftentimes scary, the place where God is leading you.. But scary isn’t bad or wrong or a misdirection. Sometimes being scared is the point, because it asks us not to lean on our own abilities or storage solutions. Our safety oriented nature always asks for a safety net, but God never promises us safety as the world sees it. Which doesn’t mean God doesn’t help you be safe. God just provides a different kind of safety gear. Respond: What safety net are you holding onto which God might ask you to let Go? Are you more safety conscious when it comes to God, or more willing to risk? How might you move from one side to the other? Pray: God of the journey - we want to be the captain of our own ships, setting our course and dictating each step of our lives. Help us to find joy in the adventure and peace in the unexpected. When we look back on the path of our lives, remind us of the many places the road turned in a different direction than we’d planned and show us the growth we experienced along the way. Amen. These posts will always be free, however, if you find them meaningful and would like to consider supporting our online outreach, you can donate using this link. [https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church] https://account.venmo.com/pay?recipients=WakeForestPresbyterian-Church This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wfpc.substack.com [https://wfpc.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]