Friday, March 4, 2005
We just had the wonderful joy of a visit from our son, his wonderful wife and our awesome little granddaughter. She's two, but I think she has the vocabulary of a five-year-old. Besides being unexplainably beautiful (being my granddaughter, that is), she really knows how to communicate - with words, with gestures, facial expressions. We love our time with her, and she seems to love her time with us. But this isn't home. They live many miles from here. She needs to be home ultimately, sleeping in her bed, playing with her toys, being around the people she loves there, and enjoying her personal world. This is where she visits. That's where she lives. She was in the car with Mommy and Daddy, all strapped in her toddler seat and ready to pull out of the driveway to head home. But, oh how she cried! She begged me to get in. She begged me to sit down. Her crying broke a grandparent's heart. But she's home now, and she's loving being where she lives. It's just that leaving is so hard.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "You Leave or You Lose."
The reason so many of us never get where we're supposed to be in life is because we don't want to leave where we are. And leaving is just too hard; too scary. It's the deal-breaker. So even when God says, "It's time to make a move," we just hold on tight and say, "I can't leave." But so often in the plans of God, leaving is the door to your destiny.
You can see that in the amazing life of one of God's great heroes, Abraham. Ahead of him was the fathering of the Jewish nation and an exciting place of leadership in the purposes of God. But first he had to leave. In fact, God's first recorded word to Abraham - called Abram at this point - is "leave." Listen to Genesis 12:1-2, our word for today from the Word of God. "The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.'" Imagine! Leave the people you know and love, the place you know, and the security you have - for a "land that I will show you." Not even a brochure or a briefing from someone who's been there. Just leaving the known for the unknown.
The New Testament describes Abraham's life-changing response this way: "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going" ( Hebrews 11:8). If you don't leave when God says leave, you miss His best and just settle for what's safe. If you decide based on what's safe and comfortable, you will almost surely miss God's great plans for you. Jesus had to leave heaven to become our Savior. Simon left his fishing business and became the apostle Peter; Levi left his tax collector's office and became the apostle Matthew. Leaving is often the door to your destiny, if it's God who's asking you to leave, not just your restlessness or your discontentment.
God may be summoning you to something unknown but unbelievable. But you can't go there without leaving - maybe leaving a relationship, a position, a sin, your family, your comfort zone, the way you've always done things, without leaving your addiction to controlling things. Why would you take this hard step? Early in our ministry, God called a dedicated young woman from a lucrative job with one of the most prestigious modeling firms in the world to join us in rescuing the lost. On her application, under reason for leaving this dream job, she simply wrote one word: "Jesus."
That's why you leave. Because He left heaven for you. Because your life now belongs to Him. And because anyone who loved you enough to die for you will not do you wrong. If He's asking you to leave behind the known for the unknown, don't miss your destiny by holding on. Remember, those who never get out of the boat never know what it is to walk on water!