Wednesday, December 12, 2018
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We had been working on our college production for our Junior-Senior Banquet for months. It was an original musical drama, written and directed by my roommate and me, based on the book of Esther. The orchestra had rehearsed night after night, the chorus had rehearsed, the actors, the light crew, the sound crew; we had prepared as much as we could. The night before, we had the dress rehearsal. But all those months of preparation and practice came down to one evening-the night of the big performance, and it was show time!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "It's Show Time!"
All our work, all our experiences over all those months were to get us ready for the moment that really mattered; the real performance that would affect many people's lives. The practices with no audience watching actually helped us to do it right when there was a large audience watching. It may be you're in rehearsal right now. Yeah, God is sending or allowing you to go through some things right now that really are your preparation for some important assignments ahead...which means that what you're going through isn't random. It isn't meaningless. It has great meaning, but you can't see that now. But many will see it when it's finally "show time."
It happened to David. In our word for today from the Word of God, 1 Samuel 17, beginning with verse 34, young David is persuading the king that he can go out and defeat the enemy giant, Goliath, even though he is only a shepherd boy and all the professional soldiers have retreated. He says, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who has delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."
David had experienced God's power in battles that he fought when no one was watching. What he learned there (because he did it right in practice) enabled him to win a decisive victory for the Lord when the nation was watching! I can't help but think of something Lisa Beamer said in an interview. Her husband, Todd, had died trying to stop the hijackers of Flight 93 on that September 11th. Lisa was thrust into the national spotlight, where she winsomely represented her faith and her hope in Jesus Christ. She said, though, that it was her struggle with the death of her father years earlier that had prepared her for this larger moment, where she then impacted millions of lives.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose life included some very high highs and some very low lows, said, "Through the ups and downs of success, we become better people, and as better people, God can call us to bigger jobs." Maybe that's what God is doing in your life right now. He's preparing you for bigger things, for opportunities you can't imagine right now that will impact many lives. That's the reason for the things you're going through right now.
But now, you're in practice where there aren't many people watching, where the load is heavy, and where the temptations are many. And now is the time you've just got to be faithful. You must be opening yourself up to God's working as you never have before. Or maybe it's "show time" right now, a major crunch time when it's your time to show what a mighty God you serve. Why? So you can hear the applause of heaven!