“I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” – Philippians 3:12-13
It is certainly a wonderful thing when God gives me a revelation while reading His word. I also love when I get insight and wisdom when spending time with God in prayer. However sometimes, lessons learned by experience are more powerful and leave a greater impression on us than lessons learned in any other way. While I may prefer the first two types of learning environments, the experience based lessons tend to be how God speaks to me most of the time.
I am a Disney nerd. There are far worse things that I could have as an interest, so I don’t apologize for it. This fascination began about three years ago and in that time I have practically become a Walt Disney World theme park encyclopedia. My wife tolerates it as she loves Disney World as well. My kids and some of the rest of my family think it’s a little weird, but hey, everyone needs a hobby. I watch YouTube channels devoted to WDW, read blogs and websites about WDW, and more recently listen to podcasts discussing the parks and theme park touring strategies.
I was amazed when I found this constituency out there on the interwebs that was entirely devoted to the “House of Mouse”. Private Facebook groups, DisTwitter, and entire Internet forums created for the WDW loving community make up this amazing niche. One of the things I have really enjoyed has been the online communication and banter with the Disney World community. There are a few podcasters out there with which I’ve even formed some friendships.
One such group of podcasters recently celebrated their 150th episode and invited anyone who lived locally to come out to a café in their hometown to join in the live recording of the episode. I decided to make the almost four-hour drive down to join in the celebration. They were recording early in the morning, so I knew I needed to drive down the night before the show. The town in which they were recording didn’t really have a hotel to speak of, so I stayed in a larger town about 45 minutes away at a fairly reputable chain hotel.
It was here at this hotel that God taught me a valuable lesson in a rather unorthodox way. Upon arriving, I went to my room to discover a few things amiss about the room. There was no shower curtain and the remote wouldn’t change the television channels. Admittedly, I’m not much of a TV watcher. I didn’t really think I would watch TV that evening, and it being a solo trip, the shower curtain was not a huge deal either. However, I called the front desk and let them know the issues. They offered to bring a new remote and shower curtain or I could just move to the room next door as they weren’t at capacity that evening. I chose to just move rooms.
At approximately 4:45 AM the next morning a strange sound awoke me. I rolled over and the door of my room was standing wide open and there was a man standing in the doorway. It effectively scared the stuffing out of me. I shouted something completely incomprehensible and he immediately slammed the door after yelling a hurried apology. I got up, bolted the door, and somehow went back to sleep.
The next morning, I went to the front desk and told them they needed to increase the door key card security for the rooms because I was intruded upon in the middle of the night. She asked if I was in room 206, to which I answered yes. She shamefacedly told me that it was her fault. Apparently when I switched rooms the evening prior, the front desk clerk never made the adjustment in the computer. Room 206 still appeared to be empty; therefore the night clerk rented that room to someone else. So what I thought was a case of a poor door lock was simply a consequence of a hastily made decision to move from my assigned room.
On my drive that morning, my mind was mulling over the hotel incident and I felt God speaking to my spirit. I felt like He was saying (and I’m paraphrasing), “This is what so many of my children do. They see some imperfections and some inconveniences and instead of letting Me do the work and fix the situations, they just move to a location in which I didn’t call them. When My people move without consulting Me, they get out from under the protection that I provide and open themselves up to attack.” He then started showing me places in scripture that backed up what He said.
Jonah was on a boat heading to Tarsus when he was supposed to be going to Nineveh. He stirred up trouble, not only for him, but for every sailor on that boat. Samson was a judge in Israel and was supposed to be in his home territory but was instead in the land of Sorek which was at the border of enemy territory. (How many of us want to tip-toe that line of where we need to be, and enemy territory? Okay, that’s probably a whole article on its own!) It was there he met Delilah, and we know how that turned out.
Then there was King David. II Samuel 11:1 reads, “It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.” As king, David was supposed to be with his army, but instead he stayed at home. He was walking around on his palace roof and he saw Bathsheba bathing. The simple decision to stay home, instead of being where he was supposed to be, caused an illicit affair, a cover-up, and finally a murder.
God has called each one of us to be in specific places at specific times. We can certainly request a transfer, but we need to be sensitive to the voice of God and obey what He says. Being a believer isn’t always comfortable. Whether it is a church, a job, or even a marriage; discomfort and irritation are not always signs that we need to get out of our current situation. Sometimes we need to stay put and let God work some things out in our life instead of just packing up and hitting the road. When we get out from underneath our destiny, we are also opening ourselves up to attack. Being outside of the will of God will always produce discord in our lives. As we can see in the biblical examples above, God WILL get our attention. How far we travel from His plan for us will usually determine how drastic the measures He will use to get us back in line. Let’s not so quickly throw away the protection that comes from being in our God-ordained place! We all want to do our part to see the kingdom of God move forward, but it is hard to do when we’re not at our designated location. Let’s decide to live out our short time on this earth doing things that have eternal value, and doing it from the place to which God called us!