#3 ARE YOU LEAVING TOO...? WHEN YOUR BROOK GOES DRY
By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr.
Kyfingers@aol.com
This is part 3. Are you going too... When the brook goes dry?
TEXT:
John 6:2 And the great multitude followed Him,
because THEY SAW MIRACLES which Jesus had done on those with diseases.
John 6:66 From that time many of his disciples WENT BACK,
AND WALKED NO MORE WITH HIM.
1 Kings 17:7 And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: BUT GOD IS FAITHFUL, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you will be ABLE TO BEAR IT.
ARE YOU GOING TO LEAVE TOO --- OR ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE?
Seems the only thing I know that likes change is a baby and his diaper.
But know this, you don’t have to leave when things get hard. You will know seasons,
change comes as preparations are made. Quitting and leaving are not the options.
Build, submit, and hear.
We need to know when God has a plan, He will bring it about.
We must trust God and we must trust the plan.
When God desires to bring about a new plan, we often want to throw up our hands and quit? Why quit?
Why not accept God’s change?
As a pastor my job is often to make the uncomfortable comfortable, and then to make the comfortable uncomfortable.
But we need God’s Holy Wisdom to do His Work.
It is always TOO SOON TO QUIT.
Often we want to quit instead of accepting NEW ORDERS.
Are you going to leave if God wants CHANGE?
I often hear: can a leopard change his spots?
If this is your answer, and you resist change, you will be limited.
Many Christian workers change fields when they should change attitudes and
dig in where they are.
Nothing endures but change. Don’t quit! Don’t leave! CHANGE!
I was at a Baptist church the other night, and the old Preacher told about how he had changed over the years.
He said he was not the same preacher he used to be. He said he used to hate suit coats and would never preach in one.
Now, he stays cool and always wears one. He said he spoke poorly of preachers that used notes, now he used notes.
Seems he couldn’t remember like he used to. He said that time had seemed to steal his tears, but that he stood upon the Word,
and his tears and compassion returned.
If you are wise, time will change some of your opinions.
7. DON’T LET DIVISION DIVIDE!
From time to time friends need to go different directions, this does not have to be bad. Don’t slam the door.
We can refuse to let go, or try to force the issue. Change is sometimes what we need.
We get spoiled, or toO comfortable with familiar surroundings.
When change comes, we often dread to face facts, and self doubt comes.
FIGHT OR FLIGHT ATTITUDES.
We can fall into a nagging, complaining, fussing, faultfinding MINDSET if we want to.
We can say this is too hard and leave, we can grow a RUN AWAY heart, and not want to face reality.
Let me say up front here, we often have a "RUN AWAY SPIRIT" instead of facing
and dealing with the real issues.
You can’t always run away and be successful.
I know that Brook Cherith became a source of Divine supply. Air mail food?
1 Kings 17:7 And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
The lack of rain, was to cause the man of God to depend on the Word of God.
1 Kings 17 the brook provided water and the birds brought the food, morning and evening.
One day the birds never flew and delivered the food the man of God needed.
Oh, No, God is done with Elijah? No! Not at all!
God had a trust issue to make His man trust Him and trust God’s plan.
I heard a TV preacher say Elijah prophesied his own brook dry, that is why the brook dried up?
This is not so.
Elijah needed rest and relaxation and food, but his whole ministry could not be sitting by a creek.
If the creek had not dried up, Elijah’s ministry would have!
God had bigger plans, Elijah had to step into a trust of God and a widow woman in Zarephath
need to give and be blessed..
But there is going to come a time, that God has a different plan.
As a pastor, God gives me some long term helpers, then God sends some short termers,
that help and then move on to something else. But God wants us to TRUST HIM and not leave.
Elijah’s ministry advanced and God used different sources to sustain His man.
Elijah had to learn to trust God for direction and provisions.
His ministry was not for sell, but he had to change.
In 22 years of full time ministry I have seen brooks come,
I have seen brooks dry up. I have had God open new brooks.
When a brook dries up, we must have faith to stay at our post of duty.
Refuse to let a dry brook cause you to want to leave and breed doubt.
Are you going to leave too?
Well, my brook has dried up, I must be out of the will of God?
Not so. God wants you to trust and rely on Him and His plan.
God knows to shift the gears from time to time.
A Baptist friend told me, he would love pastoring if it weren’t for people. ??? Boy do I understand this.
I hate the circular patterns, advance ... go back ... you know the story.
That is the cost of leadership.
Teach, test, reteach... and never give up.
Another fellow pastor, said, " I am not burned out, I am burned up."
I sure understand that. He later quit the ministry and went to truck driving,
later a divorce and many scars.
Getting tired makes cowards out of heroes, then doubt sneaks and grows.
Burned up or burned out will both breed doubt and I want to leave attitude.
Does not the word promise, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength?
Where is our expectant waiting? Do we have a duty?
God was not in the wind, the fire, or the earthquake; God gently whispered as a STILL, SMALL VOICE.
We will doubt God and self while waiting?
Man seems resistant to change.
Why not trust God, and allow that still, small voice to develop a plan right
before our hearts.
We must let that plan adapt.
We must use communication to relay our hearts.
A new preacher accepted his first pastorate at a country church.
The piano was on the "wrong side" of the podium.
He and his wife moved it to the "right side."
The next service the old people got together and asked him to leave.
The next pastor came, noted that the piano was on the wrong side.
He prayed about it.
He and his wife moved the piano 1/2 an inch every other week.
After a long haul, the piano was where it should have been, no questions asked.
No one was angry, God and time worked.
f we lack wisdom, ask and He will give it liberally. We ask.
Matthew 24, lays out the conditions, when the Lord’s soon return would be at hand.
We can see before our eyes in the middle east.
But look within the church, Mat. 24:10 .... and many shall be offended.... And betray one another.
We hear and see of much heartache in the ministry, but we cannot leave...
there is too much to gain to lose.
This is what you see, but God knows what He is doing, even when He doesn’t tell us.
My heart was always heavy reading about Paul and Barnabas separating over the unfaithfulness of John Mark, as recorded in Acts.
Barnabas was one that stood for the little, Acts 9:27,
Barnabas gave Paul his first break, when all was rejecting Paul because of Saul’s past. Barnabas stood up and defended the new worker.
Acts 12:25, Barnabas and Paul gave a break to an evangelist named John Mark, who quit after a short time.
What a team Paul and Barnabas were, they shook the world.
For years the two ministered together.
One day John Mark learned his lesson for quitting, Acts 15:36, and John Mark returned.
Paul remembered John Mark’s vacillating, and refused him as a member of the team.
Paul was bullheaded, no way was the quitter going with them?
Paul put his foot down.
Barnabas, the minister of grace, defended John Mark and told Paul, the young man had changed,
Barnabas demanded a chance to try again for the young man.
Acts 15:39, and the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder.
So Paul chooses Silas, and Barnabas works with John Mark to make a new team, two teams not one.
This little story hurt me many years, the conflict between two great men of God, then I saw a truth.
Two new team leaders, two new workers being trained, two teams cover twice the distance.
God knows how to shuffle His men around.
While the way it happened hurts, we see God was there. Paul was not wrong, Barnabas was not wrong.
We must realize by faith this division is not the end.
Let me look ahead, God does a neat work, in 2 Timothy 4:11 Paul says bring John Mark with you,
he is profitable to me for ministry.
See, God turns it around and the team reunites, this was not a personal attack.
How can two walk together unless they agree? Amos 3:3
Get those heads up ... don’t seek a dark corner, neither put a fan on a skunk.
If new directions for ministry occur, wait on the Lord.
Don’t try to bring new change too quick.
Prepare your heart, prepare the hearts of others.
Introduce change slowly.
When people resist, back off, regroup and rethink.
Divorce yourself from your ideas, if your ideas are not liked, does not mean you are not liked.
Communicate better.
Never doubt, the Holy Spirit can open our creative minds.
If we lack wisdom, ask, He will give it liberally.(James1:5) But don’t wavier like water, and never issue ultimatums.
God will not change what is in you, until you become willing to change.
DON’T MAKE GOD, SUBMIT TO HIM.
TRUST HIS PLAN --- DON’T LEAVE --- SUBMIT.
His servant,
Wade Martin Hughes, Sr.
Kyfingers@aol.com
My hands are so little, please pass this to others?
