Pt. 2 – Detour Details
Interruption. A cancelation. A meeting moved. A delay. A different route. Sickness. Lack. Brokenness. All of these things have one thing in common . . . they are detours. They knock us off our intended and preferred route. They force us to adjust and go a different way. And just in case you have forgotten let me remind you that I hate detours. I like ordered, planned and set paths.
But detours are a reality that we must all face. As we sprint to the end of 2012 and prep for 2013 you need to know that detours will take place. So we talked last week from the story of Abraham who was asked to sacrifice his son of promise Isaac. He shows us that there are two detour decisions that you must make before the moment of the detour so that the detour will not destroy you!
Will you continue to follow and obey if your expected end isn't His intended end? Will you accept His plan if it means your plan has to be trumped? Will you continue to follow if the answer is "No"? We must understand that God doesn't inhabit our plans He inhabits our praise. So we have to be able to praise Him when He brings change to our plan!
So today I want us to move forward and I want to continue to equip you to deal with detours by sharing some "Detour Details" with you!
Text: Judges 6:1-16
1-6 Yet again the People of Israel went back to doing evil in God’s sight. God put them under the domination of Midian for seven years. Midian overpowered Israel. Because of Midian, the People of Israel made for themselves hideouts in the mountains—caves and forts. When Israel planted its crops, Midian and Amalek, the easterners, would invade them, camp in their fields, and destroy their crops all the way down to Gaza. They left nothing for them to live on, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. Bringing their cattle and tents, they came in and took over, like an invasion of locusts. And their camels—past counting! They marched in and devastated the country. The People of Israel, reduced to grinding poverty by Midian, cried out to God for help.
7-10 One time when the People of Israel had cried out to God because of Midian, God sent them a prophet with this message: “God, the God of Israel, says,
I delivered you from Egypt, I freed you from a life of slavery; I rescued you from Egypt’s brutality and then from every oppressor; I pushed them out of your way and gave you their land. “And I said to you, ‘I am God, your God. Don’t for a minute be afraid of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living.’ But you didn’t listen to me.”
11-12 One day the angel of God came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, whose son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, out of sight of the Midianites. The angel of God appeared to him and said, “God is with you, O mighty warrior!”
13 Gideon replied, “With me, my master? If God is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about, telling us, ‘Didn’t God deliver us from Egypt?’ The fact is, God has nothing to do with us—he has turned us over to Midian.”
14 But God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?”
15 Gideon said to him, “Me, my master? How and with what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. My clan’s the weakest in Manasseh and I’m the runt of the litter.”
16 God said to him, “I’ll be with you. Believe me, you’ll defeat Midian as one man.”
The Children of Israel are once again in bondage and living in fear. In fact, they live is so much fear that they are hiding in caves and running into the hills. They cry out to God for help! We pick the account up with a young man by the name of Gideon making an attempt to avoid losing his harvest from the enemy. He hides.
He tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. And at that place a designed detour overtakes him and in the process gives us some details about detours that we need to know.
a. You cannot hide from a detour!
Gideon is minding his own business and is overtaken by a detour. Moses is residing in a palace and is overtaken by a detour. Joseph is simply sharing his dream and is overtaken by a detour. David is alone on the back side of the desert spending his days worshipping God and is overtaken by a detour.
You need to know today that regardless of your station in life . . . maybe you are in a palace moment . . . maybe you are in a desert moment . . . you will face detours. You cannot hide.
Some of you are trying to fly under the radar. You are minding your own business. You aren't attempting anything radical. You aren't taking any chances. You are just trying to scrape by, take care of your own, and bother nobody! Some of you literally think that if you do nothing, if you just sit here and coast that you can avoid detours.
Listen, let me give you the details! You can't hide from detours! Like Gideon you may only want to take care of your business but God will use a detour to get you into a His business.
I watch some of you try to sit on the sidelines, withdrawal, quit, check out, zone out, refuse to get involved, fail to engage, go through the motions thinking you will be able keep the detours from coming! I think you think that by hiding you remove yourself from God's sight! However, if you are hiding you may just find out that you are more likely to be faced with a detour that God sends to get you trying, get you praying, serving, obeying, believing and moving again!
B. Detours expose your insecurities!
Notice that this detour in Gideon's life brings to the surface and to the forefront Gideon's insecurities. God interrupts him in order to send him down a new path and instantly Gideon admits that he has some self esteem issues. "You want me?" "Don't you know that I am from the weakest clan and not only that I am the runt of that litter?" "I am the least of the least!" "I am a nobody and a nothing!"
It would appear that God uses detours to expose our insecurities. Isn't that how you feel when you wake up right in the middle of a detour? When you expected success and failure comes. When you expected health and sickness comes. When you expected relationship and a broken heart comes. Don't you feel powerless? Don't you feel uncertain? Don't you feel unable? Don't you feel forsaken and helpless?
But the detour details is this . . . God uses detours to expose our insecurities not so that we will be embarrassed but so that we will forced to come to grips with "greater is He that is in us than he that is against us!" "Didn't I say I sent you? Didn't I say I would be with you?"
Detours help us to recalibrate to God's ability to operate in and through us! It is a reminder that God is bigger than our insecurities and that He can use us not because of our strength but rather in spite of our weaknesses!
If it wasn't for detours we would either think we are too strong or we would think we are too weak!
He isn't trying to embarrass you by exposing your issues He is trying to erase your issues by getting you to focus on His ability!
I don't know what your insecurities are today. God does and He doesn't want them overlooked or covered up and forgotten. He uses the uncertainty and unknown of detours to bring those insecurities to the surface so that you can address them and overcome them.
C. Detours often look like a mistake before they begin to look like a miracle!
Talk about a mistake. Selecting Gideon had to be a mistake. He is from the weakest tribe. He apparently was small or weak himself. He was unproven in battle. He has no following. He isn't a military genius or strategist. He is victoryless! He is unarmed. He has no resource. This has to be a mistake.
You think about how many detours appear to be a mistake when you first read about them in Scripture.
Abraham - too old
Moses - a stutterer
David - too young
Rahab - hello . . . harlot
Job - too tragic
Matthew - too much deceit
Peter - too pushy
Paul - too angry and way too much baggage
Think about it how this is true in life.
Silly Putty, Post It Notes, Penicillin, X-Rays . . . all mistakes that led to miraculous inventions.
You think about the detours you have already faced. Didn't they first seem like a mistake before they began to look like a miracle? It is important to remember this detail as you face a new detour!
The detour detail is that more times than not the detour you are facing or that you will face will look like a major mistake by God or by someone else before it is ever revealed that this "mistake" was actually a moment for a miracle! In fact, Gideon reveals that at times when you face a detour you may feel like God has completely forgotten you!
The reason it is important to know this detail is because if you don't know that, then you will panic and try to fight out of the detour and you will miss the miracle.
Tell you neighbor don't detour the detour! Some of you are missing miraculous moments because they are wrapped up in the disguise of a detour! If you are unwilling to change paths, accept His plan, adjust to His way, then you will miss the break ins and breakthroughs of God. Why aren't you seeing miracles? Could it be your walking out your plan instead of His? Could it be the detour He designed for you was aborted or passed up because you thought it was a big mistake? Are His thoughts still higher than ours? Are His ways still higher than ours? Then we have to see detours as divine! In fact, without the detour the Children of Israel would have remained in bondage. Could that be true for you too?
Here's a detail you need to know . . . feeling forgotten/forsaken may actually be a corridor of favor!
The miracles come when you are willing to walk through a doorway that God leads you through that will start out looking like a mistake. You and others may categorize the way you are walking now as a mistake! But it isn't a mistake if it takes you where God wants you!
