I was having a conversation with someone very special to me just last night about feeling stuck in a place where you can see your future in sight but you just can’t get there. I am doing a bible study right now, Elijah by Priscilla Shirer. I’ve gotten a little behind on my lessons and I had been feeling a little bad about myself for it, but then this morning I opened my book to the next lesson and the title was “Somewhere In-Between”. It didn’t strike me at first but as I got into the lesson, I couldn’t help but think about my conversation last night.
In this lesson Priscilla is pointing out all the times in scripture when people had to leave one place to go to another but they had a stop in between.
For instance Noah built an ark, but then he had to stay in that ark a long time while it rained and rained and rained and then a long time while the earth dried up.
Abraham set out from his home not knowing where he was heading but just knowing God had called him to it long before he would actually become the father of many nations.
Moses left Egypt first because he killed a man before he ever returned to Egypt to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” Hebrews 11:13-14
“If they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country.” Hebrews 11:15-16
If these men had not spent their time in preparation and had not accomplished what God wanted them to accomplish their stories would be very different and our stories may be very different too.
And then there is Elijah, in my Bible Study that I am doing, where right now in study he is sitting by a brook, being fed by ravens so that God can prepare him for an experience on Mount Carmel. This story is found in 1 Kings 17: 1-7
I learned two lessons this morning in my bible study. Well it may really be just one. It’s all about timing. You see God called these men to a place of in between. Sometimes God puts us in a place where we feel stuck. But really we are right where God wants us to be at the moment. God was making these men into the men he needed them to be to accomplish the task he wanted them to accomplish. I can relate to the feeling stuck phase. I have some things I see in my horizon but the constraints of time and jobs and responsibilities are keeping me from accomplishing all I want to accomplish. But maybe God has me right where he wants me to be right now and maybe he needs me to stay put to learn more so that I can be the woman he needs me to be in order to accomplish those things.
The other point is while I was feeling guilty of getting behind on my study, how incredible that I had that conversation last night and I had this lesson today. It is ok that I got behind because as it turned out the timing of the lesson was more perfect now than it would have been a week ago. I would love to tell you I would have remembered the lesson from last week but I can be hard headed and maybe I wouldn’t have and maybe, hmm probably God knew that too.
I want to leave you with a couple of quotes from the pages of this lesson.
“Sometimes, in order to get us adequately prepared for the moments to come, God may not allow us to return to the way things used to be, the place where we could easily become lulled into complacency.” #ElijahBibleStudy
“Life in the middle can be unsettling, but don’t be discouraged. Stay put. Trust God, and in due time He’ll move you on.”
Have a great day my friends!
Restore 