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Many times I have wondered what God was doing (or where He was) during the difficult moments of my life.  And I have asked questions like

What’s Going on God?

Why is this happening to me?

What are you trying to teach me?

Why do I keep getting the short end of the stick?

I can’t take this anymore. What is going on?

Any of this sound familiar?  I have asked these questions and others like it on several occasions.  How about you. Have you asked these questions of God? Or ones like them?

Why did this have to happen to me?

What did I do to deserve this?

God is up to something in the difficult moments of our lives.  He hasn’t walked away from us or left us alone to wonder what is happening.  He is moving in us and preparing us so that He can release us in the future.

I’m sure Joseph had some of these same questions when his brothers threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery. And as he spent years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit I’m sure several times these questions played through his mind.  I don’t know about you but I could never seem to get an answer from God when I asked these questions. And this often added to my frustration.  I often felt like I had missed what God was trying to accomplish.  I discovered over the years that I haven’t missed God many times, and it brought peace to my heart because I realized I hadn’t missed out on God’s plan.  I had just misunderstood God’s methods for fulfilling His purpose in me. And I would like to share some of my journey with you.

God has given each of us a purpose to fulfill.  One poster my parents had when I was growing up said “I know I’m somebody, ’cause God don’t make no junk.”    God doesn’t make mistakes.  And God made you and I.  Jeremiah 1:5 states

“Before I shaped you in the womb,
I knew all about you.
Before you saw the light of day,
I had holy plans for you: “

God pre-planned and designed each us with a purpose to fulfill.  The question we most often have is how is my circumstance helping get me closer to what God has planned for me.  Our purpose is uniquely crafted specifically for each one of us, and God lays out a path for us so that we can choose to fulfill our purpose or to walk away from it.  God qualifies us all for the purpose He has designed us for.   What we do with what God reveals determines whether or not we disqualify ourselves.

There are 4 stages that God brings us through that enable us to live out His purpose for us. And they can be summed up in one statement by John Stott.

“Things happen TO me,

So that things can happen IN me

So that things can happen THROUGH me.”

Change is a powerful force in our lives.  And our lives are always changing.  We don’t always like change, and people can feel differing levels of anxiety when things are changing around them.  And yet when a change is valuable enough to a person they are willing to adjust and make the necessary changes in their lives.  Even the most anxious person who is against change will willingly adjust at times and accept change as important and necessary.

Change is something that we cannot escape even if we try.  As long as there is life in us change is happening.  As we get older our bodies undergo constant changes.  The relationships we are in change over time.  Some change for the better and others begin to come unraveled and the changes are less than pleasant.  We are constantly undergoing changes in our lives, relationships, careers and families.  Harold Wilson said “Change is inevitable. He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

Even though we are continually changing we as humans resist change instinctively.  A group of scientists placed five monkeys in a cage. Inside the cage, they hung a banana on a string with a set of stairs placed under it. Before long, a monkey went to the stairs and started to climb towards the banana. As soon as he started up the stairs, the psychologists sprayed all the other monkeys with ice-cold water. After a while, another monkey tried to get the banana.  As soon as his foot touched the stairs, all the other monkeys were sprayed with ice-cold water. It’s wasn’t long before all the other monkeys would physically prevent any monkey from climbing the stairs. Now, the psychologists shut off the cold water, removed one monkey from the cage and replaced it with a new one. The new monkey saw the banana and started to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the other monkeys attacked him.  After another attempt and attack, he discovered that if he tried to climb the stairs, he would be assaulted. Next they removed another of the original five monkeys and replaced it with a new one. The newcomer went to the stairs and was attacked. The previous newcomer took part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, they replaced a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey tried to climb the stairs, he was attacked. The monkeys had no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they were beating any monkey that tried. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approached the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been around here.”

While this experiment never really happened this way it does illustrate a trait in human nature to resist change.  How many times have you heard or said something to the effect of “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”  Many things is our lives are simply the result of us having done them that way enough that we develop a pattern which we don’t have to think about, and anyone challenging the behavior gets the same resistant response, and we resist the idea of change even if the change would be simple and valuable to us.  Henry Cloud wrote “We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.”

What changes are we resisting that are necessary in our lives.  When we begin to see change as inevitable and see change as valuable to life we can then be more willing to accept changes in our lives and see the value of those changes as we grow and develop.  As Christians this is extremely important.  We cannot keep fighting changes if we want to see God impact our world.  Society is changing all around us, and we all know that the world that once was is no longer, and the changes are not slowing down.  If we don’t change our methods we will lose our impact on the people we encounter.  What once worked is not working any longer.  And yet God’s mind hasn’t changed.  He still desires that all people come to know Him personally 1 Timothy 2:4.  And He sent us out into the world with the same mandate that Jesus had, to “Seek and save the lost.” Luke 19:10

But the methods that we choose to use need to change to be useful to impact the society we are trying to reach.  Pastor Rick Warren said “don’t confuse methods with the message. The message must never change, but methods must change with each new generation”.   Change is important, valuable and inevitable.  Life is changing all around us.  Will we accept the need for change allow changes to happen in our lives?

“We all live searching for that one possible way of being that carries with it the gift of authenticity. We are most conscious of this search for identity during adolescence, when it takes front stage. At this stage of life we try on identities like clothing, looking for a style of being that fits with how we want to be seen. But even long after adolescence has passed, most adults know the occasional feeling of being a fraud—a sense of being not what they pretend to be but rather precisely what they pretend not to be.”    Benner, David G.

In a world of fakes we all search for authenticity.  We live in a society that prides itself on conformity.  Our styles are led by Hollywood and popular music.  We work usually at becoming what will make us accepted, instead of what we truly are.  Everything from the clothes we where to the homes and cars we buy.  Even the friends we have in our lives.  We fit in as much as we can, and do our best to learn and conform to the rules.  And we have all tasted the rejection when we don’t fit in.

People have always admired authenticity in others.  We all have hero’s that led from who they were and strove not to fit what society told them to be, but instead discovered themselves and entered life from a place of confidence and security which drew many people to them.  People like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa.  People who just lived life knowing who they were and rising to the challenge to be themselves no matter what happened.

Authenticity is defined as;

• real or genuine : not copied or false
• true and accurate
• not false or imitation:real, actual
• true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character
• being really what it seems to be

via Authentic | Definition of Authentic by Merriam-Webster

We all have the ability to be authentic, and to make a serious impact on our world and our society.  But only if we make the journey to discover who we truly are can we actually be authentic.  Making the journey allows us to strip away all the things that family and society formed in and around us that are not us.  At times this can be painful because some of our actions are determined by protecting us from painful memories and situations.  As we journey we begin to separate who we actually are from who we were made to be.  We may find our choices changing.  We may even begin to actually like ourselves.

All of this happens as we make the effort to discover the roots of our behaviors, and to start making choices based on who we are and not who we were told to become.  Jesus was a man who deeply knew Himself.  There was a complete confidence in Him that allowed Him to face every obstacle and difficulty.  His purpose and presence was based in who He was.  And regardless of if you believe He was God or not He changed His world powerfully.

It is within us all to be world changers.  To seize the moments of life given to us and to live them for all they are worth.  This can happen as we discover ourselves and truly become authentic.