Naturally, things that have great destiny quite often encounter serious turbulence. What this means in practice is that God hides our precious destiny in those things that have the agility to survive acute disasters.
So pay attention to things that refuse to burn up after a barrage of intense burning. Watch out for anything that survives a relationship, career, emotional, health or financial disaster because such things carry vital secrets of your destiny.
In aviation accident investigation, every piece of wreckage that can be recovered from the crash scene is vital. But the single most important piece of equipment that holds crucial information is a flight recorder commonly known as Black Box. A plane’s Black Box (which is actually orange in colour to make it more visible) records crucial data, and is made to withstand high impact and intense temperatures.
Everything that survives your tragedy is your black box, it carries some vital information that might help establish possible causes of your adversity, learn from the experience and improve your life.
One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There he saw the bush engulfed in flames. After staring at it for a while Moses was surprised to observe that though the bush was burning it didn’t burn up. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God spoke to him about the mission to rescue the Israeli’s from their Egyptian slavery (Exodus 3:1-15).
Is there anything that has been burning in your life but has refused to burn up? Be attentive. God is about to speak to you through that very thing.
Another way of saying this is that some things in our lives are like gift boxes that preserve our gifts until the appointed time. In due course, these boxes must be broken before we can enjoy our God given gifts. Everything that God breaks in your life is just a box – a container that was designed to preserve your gift until an appointed time. Every broken thing in your life – no matter how deeply you fell in love with – was not intended to last forever. Yes, it might have helped you in the past but it was never intended to be part of your future.
Bishop TD Jakes once said, “God will use what you have left to produce your miracle not with what you have lost!” And Apostle John says, “if they have left us they were not really meant for us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; that they left us is a proof that they were not part of us forever” (1John 2:19).
God will never break your box unless He either has the best alternative handy or you no longer need one!
Sadly though, most of us spend most of our time and energy counting the costs of our loses instead of counting the remaining blessings. In so doing we miss the vital signs that were intended to lead us to our better future.
The problem with many of us is that we fall in love with our boxes too deeply. When these boxes are shattered we spend too much time crying for them. And the tears we shed prevent us from seeing the best that God has for us.
“When one door closes, another opens”, says Alexander Graham Bell, “but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us”.
This does not mean we should not mourn for our losses. In fact, grieving is spiritually, emotionally and physically healthy. Grieving not only shows how those things you have lost meant to you but also helps you get over your ordeal efficiently and quickly by draining toxic emotions of bitterness, anger and resentment.
I know this from experience because recently I lost my beloved brother who died suddenly without saying goodbye. To say the least, I was heart broken because he meant so much to me. After proper grieving I felt better and was able to move on with my life quickly.
So the question is not about whether or not to grieve but about how to grieve and for how long.
As we grieve, we must focus on the good things that we can salvage from the debris of our loss. As our physical eyes cry we must keep our spiritual eyes dry and open enough to see the precious moments we have had and, most importantly, the lessons we can draw from the experience. We must then be grateful to God for the precious experience, dry our tears and use these lessons as leverage for our better future.
This is exactly what Job did.
In tragic circumstances Job lost his children, his properties, and his employees in one day. By anyone’s standards, this was traumatic. Instead of cursing in desperation Job worshiped God as the ultimate giver and taker of his blessings.
One strange thing was that always there was one person that survived to bring the message of devastation to Job. When God commissioned Satan to wipe out Job’s possessions He also instructed him to spare certain things- his life, his wife and 4 messengers that included at least one child and servants. These very things, apart from serving as Job’s messengers, they proved to be Job’s seeds. God used these exact things to rebuild Job’s life. The book of Job closes with the good news that in the end Job enjoyed double of what he lost.
God will always leave something behind that He will use to produce something better. He only uses the best seed to reproduce the best future. But the best seed can only be tested in adversity. That which can survive the harshest of the conditions – no matter how feeble it might look – is the best seed.
Do not lose your precious moments crying for your loses, your destiny can never be in the things that you have lost. If it’s no longer yours – no matter how profitable it has been so far – it was not meant to be part of your future.
John Maxwell recently said, “If you’re about to lose – and you are because everyone does – then why not turn it into a gain? How do you do that? By learning from it. A loss isn’t totally a loss if you learn something as a result of it. If you stay where a loss leaves you, then eventually you can get stuck there…not everyone learns from his losses. A loss doesn’t turn into a class unless we work hard to make it so. Losing provides an opportunity to learn, but many people do not seize it. And when they don’t, losing really hurts.”
What you have lost might be painful but what you have left is fruitful and powerful.
May the the Lord open your eyes to see His precious seed from the wreckage of your life experiences.
Amen.
Dreamlife Mission 