But as we see in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, God deliberately chooses the nothings of this world so He can use them to confound the wise and powerful. The Lord takes zeros and adds His power to them so that they become great for His glory, as He tells us in Zechariah 4:6: …Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit…, says the Lord of hosts.
In and of ourselves, you and I are nothing. We must not try to be independent, because if we do we will fail every time. We must recognize and acknowledge our utter dependence on God.
The reason we are so independent-minded may be that we have learned through bitter experience nobody in this world is going to look out for us or have our best interests at heart but us.
If you have been betrayed or mistreated, as I was during my childhood, you may feel everybody is out to harm you, abuse you, or use you. You may think, as I did for so many years, the only way to protect yourself and assure you are not taken advantage of is by keeping total control over every aspect of your life. If so, when God asks you to give up that control to Him, you may find it almost impossible to do so. But you may also fail to realize that your refusal to cast your care upon the Lord and entrust yourself to His keeping is just another form of childish rebellion.
WOE TO THE REBELLIOUS CHILDREN
Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel and carry out a plan, but not Mine, and who make a league and pour out a drink offering, but not of My Spirit, thus adding sin to sin;
Who set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked Me — to flee to the stronghold of Pharaoh and to strengthen themselves in his strength and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
ISAIAH 30:1,2
This is another of those “woe” Scripture passages. In it the Lord pronounces a curse upon those rebellious children who turn from trusting in Him to take counsel of themselves, carry out their own plans, and flee to “the shadow of Egypt” rather than resting under the “shadow of the Almighty.”
In this case, fleeing to the “shadow of Egypt” refers to turning to the arm of the flesh rather than leaning on the arm of the Lord. In other words, we are not to trust in ourselves or in others, but only in the Lord. We are not to make rules and regulations about everything, but we are to acknowledge the Lord in all our ways so that He may direct our paths. We are to find our strength in Him, not in ourselves or the world, which is what Egypt always represents in Scripture.
EGYPT IS NO HELP
Therefore shall the strength and protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt be to your humiliation and confusion.…
For Egypt’s help is worthless and toward no purpose.…
ISAIAH 30:3,7
In this passage, the Lord is saying to us, “Don’t turn away from trusting in Me to trusting in your own plans and devices. They won’t work, and you will only end up humiliated and confused. Before you do anything, check with Me to see if it is what you should be doing. Don’t look to the world for answers, because it has none to give. Salvation and deliverance are with Me, and Me alone.”
A BROKEN WALL
Therefore this iniquity and guilt will be to you like a broken section of a high wall, bulging out and ready [at some distant day] to fall, whose crash will [then] come suddenly and swiftly, in an instant.
And he shall break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing so that there cannot be found among its pieces one large enough to carry coals of fire from the hearth or to dip water out of the cistern.
ISAIAH 30:13,14
When you and I make our own plans or run to other people instead of trusting in the Lord, we leave a weak spot in our wall of divine protection. At a time when we least expect it, the enemy will break through that weak spot.
God does not want us to have weak spots in our lives. He wants us to rely on Him and be obedient to Him so our wall will remain strong and thick and our lives will be blessed and full.
The more we depend on God, the more He can do through us. But sometimes we go through a brokenness before we enter into blessings.
Once for about a year and a half I thought I was going mad. All I could do all day long was walk around in my house praying, “Help me, Lord!” I didn’t even know what kind of help I needed or for what. Now as I look back on that experience, I know what was happening. The spirit of independence was being broken off of me. God was bringing me to the point that I knew I could do nothing apart from Him.
I remember one night as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I picked up a little book and started reading it. Suddenly I had a visitation from God. For about forty-five minutes I sat there on the edge of my bed and wept. Finally, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Anything good you do has nothing to do with you. I am the One Who is good. When you see yourself doing anything good, it is only because I have wrestled with you to get your flesh under subjection long enough to allow My glory to shine through it.”
Sometimes before God can promote us, He has to remind us of our place. In my own case, my ministry was just about to experience a sudden spurt of growth. God was preparing me in advance by telling me, “I’m going to do something marvelous in your life and ministry, and when it happens you must remember that it is I and not you Who is bringing it to pass.”
God was teaching me what He is teaching all of, us today: The solution to our problems is found in Him and Him alone.
RETURN TO ME, SAYS THE LORD
For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength. But you would not,
And you said, No! We will speed [our own course] on horses! Therefore you will speed [in flight from your enemies]! You said, We will ride upon swift steeds [doing our own way]! Therefore will they who pursue you be swift, [so swift that]
One thousand of you will flee at the threat of one of them; at the threat of five you will flee till you are left like a beacon or a flagpole on the top of a mountain, and like a signal on a hill.
And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!
ISAIAH 30:15-18
What God was telling me that night was the same thing He is telling us today: “Either you are going to depend on Me, or you are going to end up in the biggest mess you have ever seen in your whole life.”
We must learn to depend totally upon God. If we don’t, we will not be able to do anything of any value. Apart from Him we can do nothing.
When the Lord visited me in my bedroom that night and gave me that message, it was because I had been engaged in a wrestling match with Him for a long time. It had been a battle of wills. I had been doing things the way I wanted them done, according to my plan. He was trying to show me I had to give up all that and submit to His way and plan. He was telling me I had to learn to lean on Him, to trust Him with all my heart and mind and understanding, to acknowledge Him in all my ways. He was warning me not to be wise in my own eyes, because I didn’t know half as much as I thought I did.
I thought I had everything figured out, but God had news for me.
OUR WILL OR GOD’S WILL?
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, when you were young you girded yourself [put on your own belt or girdle] and you walked about wherever you pleased to go. But when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will put a girdle around you and carry you where you do not wish to go.
JOHN 21:18
In the Scripture quoted above, I believe that though God was actually speaking to Peter about the type of death he would experience, the Lord was also letting Peter know that he
had run his own life for a long time — often walking according to emotions and his own will — but now it was time to grow up. It was time to turn the reins of his life over to God. Father God was also letting him know that he might not like everything that was going to happen, but that it would ultimately end up* for the glory of God.
When we were baby Christians, we did our own thing. We made our own decisions and followed our own course. To demonstrate God’s providential care, He blessed our plans and let them work. But when we grow up and become mature Christians, we sometimes have to do things we don’t particularly want to do in the natural realm, in obedience to God’s directions. God no longer blesses and prospers our childish plans and schemes.
For a while, God allows us to “call the shots,” so to speak. He lets us do our own thing with His blessing. But through that time, He has begun establishing His way in our individual lives. At a certain point, He starts “wrestling” with us to call us into submission to His will rather than ours. He has begun teaching us to put our trust in Him and not in ourselves.
Jesus asked Peter three times, “Simon Peter, do you love Me?” Three times Peter responded, “Yes, Lord, You know I love You.” (John 21:15-17.) Jesus had a reason for asking Peter that question three times. He knew Peter’s love was about to be put to the test.
Lately the Lord has been saying to me, “Joyce, do You love Me? If so, will you still love Me and serve Me even if I don’t do everything just the way you want or just when you think I should?”
At the time of the Lord’s visitation, I had been asking God for a huge ministry. In His visit He said to me, “Joyce, if I asked you to go down to the riverfront here in St. Louis and minister to fifty people for the rest of your life and never be known by anyone, would you do it?”
My response was, “But, Lord, surely You can’t really be asking me to do that!”
We always have such grandiose plans for ourselves. If God asks us to do something that isn’t prominent, we aren’t always sure we are hearing Him correctly, or that it is His will for us!
When God asked me those questions about my ministry, I felt the way I imagined Abraham must have felt when the Lord asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac through whom He had promised to bless him and all nations of the earth. (Genesis 22.) It seemed God was asking me to give up the very work He had given me through which He blessed many others as well as me. But God wasn’t asking me to give up that ministry. He was just asking me to lay it on the altar, as Abraham lay Isaac on the altar before the Lord.
We must not let anything — even our work for God — become more important to us than God Himself. To keep that from happening, from time to time God calls upon us to lay it all on the altar as proof of our love and commitment. He tests us by asking us to lay down our most treasured blessing as proof of our love for Him.
In my case, the Lord brought me to the point where I had to say, “Yes, Lord, I’ll do it. If that’s what You want, I’ll go down to the riverfront and minister to fifty people for the rest of my life. I love You enough to do that.”
I was weeping when I said it, but I meant it. I fell to my knees and cried out in tears, “Lord, I have nothing to give You but myself, my will, and my love. Your will be done, not mine.”
When we get to the place where we can honestly make that kind of commitment, God will begin to honor us and work out His plan for our life.
God had a different plan in mind for Peter than Peter had for himself. Peter was a hothead and a hotshot. He was always going off on tangents and speaking before he thought about what he was saying.
But the Lord loved Peter. He knew the plans He had for him, plans to bless him and do him good, not to harm him or cause him pain. But He also knew He had to deal with Peter because of his tendency to give into the flesh. That’s what Jesus was talking about when He told Peter He was praying for him — just as He is praying for you and me right now. (Hebrews 7:25.)
GOING THROUGH TIMES OF TESTING
Simon, Simon (Peter), listen! Satan has asked excessively that [all of] you be given up to him [out of the power and keeping of God], that he might sift [all of] you like grain,
But I have prayed especially for you [Peter], that your [own] faith may not fail; and when you yourself have turned again, strengthen and establish your brethren.
LUKE 22:31,32
I don’t imagine this was very good news to Peter. I am sure he must have wanted to say, “But, Lord, if there is a problem with Satan, why don’t You just handle it?”
But that wasn’t the answer Jesus gave Peter. He told him He had prayed for him, especially, and that when he had turned he was to strengthen and establish the other disciples. Jesus did not pray that Peter would be delivered from testing. He prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail him while he was going through that time of testing.
That is the same thing Jesus is praying for you and me right now. He is praying we will come through the times of testing in our lives and emerge from them strengthened and empowered so that we can strengthen and empower others to live in joy, peace, and victory.
It is so important we learn to face the enemy and not always be looking for somebody else to do it for us. If we turn our lives over to the Lord totally and completely, He may not always do everything exactly as we would like it done or just when we would like it to be done. But whatever He does do will be right, the thing that is best in that situation.
But can we really trust God to do for us what needs to be done in every situation of life?
GOD WILL PROVIDE
Now after this the Lord chose and appointed seventy others and sent them out ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to come (visit).
And He said to them, The harvest indeed is abundant [there is much ripe grain], but the farmhands are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Go your way; behold, I send you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.
Carry no purse, no provisions bag, no [change of] sandals; refrain from [retarding your journey by] saluting and wishing anyone well along the way.
LUKE 10:1-4
When the Lord sent out the seventy to prepare the way for His arrival, He told them, “I am sending you out to do a job for Me, but don’t take anything with you to take care of yourselves.”
I believe there is a spiritual principle set forth in this passage. The point is not that we are forbidden to take pocketbooks and shoes and clothes with us when we travel from one place to another to minister. The point is that we are to be obedient to do the will of God, trusting Him to meet the needs He knows we will experience.
In Luke 22:35, Jesus asked His disciples, …When I sent you out with no purse or [provision] bag or sandals, did you lack anything? They answered, Nothing!
If the Lord has sent us out to do His work, it is His responsibility to make the arrangements necessary to keep us provisioned. He has promised us if we will tend to His harvest, He will tend to our needs.
THE CAMELS ARE COMING!
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men [astrologers] from the east came to Jerusalem, asking,
Where is He Who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east at its rising and have come to worship Him.…
…and behold, the star which had been seen in the east in its rising went before them until it came and stood over the place where the young Child was.
When they saw the star, they were thrilled with ecstatic joy.
And on going into the house, they saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him. Then opening their treasure bags, they presented to Him gifts — gold and frankincense and myrrh.
MATTHEW 2:1,2,9-11
We all remember the Christmas story: how Jesus was born of Mary in a stable and laid in a manger, how the Wise Men came from the east following a star which led them to the Holy Child, how they came in and worsh
iped Him, laying before Him precious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
In this story we see that Mary and Joseph didn’t go out seeking gifts. Although they were forced to spend the night in a cold, dark stable, they didn’t send out messages asking for gifts. But because they were in the middle of God’s will, He sent them Wise Men from the east mounted on camels loaded down with provisions.
I once heard a sermon preached on this subject in a church in Minnesota. It was titled, “The Camels Are Coming.” The basic message was that if we are in the will of God, He will always bring our provision to us. We don’t have to try to chase it down; it will seek us out. We don’t have to try to make things happen; God will bring them to us.
Let me give you an example.
The church in which this sermon was preached was involved in a building program and needed a great deal of money, so they really grasped the image of God sending camels with their provision. In fact, it was such a vivid image to them, they soon had little camels sitting around on desks and tables to remind them of it. Their theme became, “The Camels Are Coming!”
They needed at least $100,000 to meet an approaching debt payment, but they felt God was telling them not to borrow the money. When the payment came due, they went to the bank and tried to borrow that amount anyway, but their loan application was denied. I am convinced it was denied because it was not God’s will for them, so He blocked that avenue.
When an avenue in our life is blocked, before we start trying to kick down the door, we need to back off and consult the Lord. That may not be the way God wants us to go.