Fly, Bumblebee

Fly—just as if it doesn’t occur to you that you cannot.

When I was a child, one of our neighbors had a ceramic kitchen plaque that told about the bumblebee being scientifically unable to fly because of its wing-to-body-size ratio. The plaque went on to conclude, “The bumblebee doesn’t know this, however, so it flies anyway.” Odd that these many years later, this memory still often comes to mind…

What thing has happened to you which makes you feel disqualified from your destiny? Is it a moral failure? A betrayal? Is it financial/asset loss? Bad decisions? Recurring weaknesses? Lack of education or credentials? Insecurity? Inexperience? Divorce? Has the enemy attacked your health?

Perhaps one day heaven will reveal why, but it’s ironic how some of the believers who’ve most successfully prayed for others to receive healing find themselves (or perhaps a close family member) bound by a chronic physical ailment which remains unhealed—much like the Apostle Paul, whose deliverance ministry to others didn’t exempt him from that persistent “thorn in the flesh.” Just as I’ve heard people mock someone who teaches on healing but still wears eyeglasses; or who has had to live with recurring cancer, or has had a child born with a birth defect, I wonder if Paul too had some accusers who were quick to point out his own unanswered prayers in progress.

Now is a season where the devil’s minions are attacking the body of Christ with accusations of unworthiness and disqualification. Many are torn between persevering and instead going underground, or even giving up altogether. Many mature saints find themselves now battling depression and despair; and moreover, some have had to rebuke the spirit of suicide in their own lives.

My word to you is DO NOT ABANDON YOUR POST! If you have undealt-with sin, confess and forsake it. Repent. Hold yourself accountable. Then get back to what God has assigned you. If it isn’t a sin issue but an attack against your character, your ministry, your family, your health or whatever, then dig in your heels and stay the course. I’ve had some nuisance illnesses and injuries over the past year or so for which the enemy has taunted, “Yeah, you teach on healing, but you can’t get healed yourself. You should just shut up because you make God look bad!” You may as well know this: in the same area God has gifted you also lies the potential for your greatest personal battle. You can be sure the devil has studied your weaknesses, and has mapped-out the places in which you pose the biggest threat against darkness. Don’t be moved by this. God’s power within you (not your own goodness or skill) qualifies your fragile earthen vessel to be a container of His treasures!

Don’t despair! Be like the bumblebee who is oblivious to the scientific arguments of its accuser. You may never soar with the agility of the butterfly, bumblebee, but you stay airborne anyway. Abraham “considered not his own (90+ year-old) body” when it came to believing God’s promises. When the accuser of the brethren tells you that you need to just crawl off and hide, to sit down, to silence your testimony, you tell him, “I DON’T CONSIDER IT! I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO GIVES ME STRENGTH!”

If God has called you, He has also equipped you…even if your wings appear too small to hold up the burden you’re bearing! Fly, child of God, fly! 🐝

“If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do,  but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.” 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, Message Translation.

No Such Thing as a Lost Cause

helping handDana was watching a history show today on TV about a man named Hugh Glass, a frontiersman in early 1800’s South Dakota. I was in the next room, but the story caught my attention and I found myself listening in. Apparently, this man was attacked by a bear and mauled so badly that his traveling companions thought he couldn’t possibly have survived. They dug a shallow, open “grave” and just placed him inside, sure he was either dead or soon to die. Being pioneers who didn’t waste anything, they stripped him of his tools and personal effects and left him in that ditch. A couple of months later, people in a fort some distance away were shocked when a severely wounded and emaciated man crawled into their midst, claiming to be Hugh Glass. Many didn’t believe he was who he said he was. Others thought he was a dead man come back to life and it terrified them. The unpleasant details of how he managed to survive make up a story that is nothing short of miraculous.

How many of our loved ones are in such bad shape that we finally just give up on them? Physically, perhaps they’re very sick and we have lost any expectation of their recovery…or spiritually, perhaps they’ve been so mean, so addicted, so rebellious, or so detached from our families that we’ve written them off as hopeless cases?  Or marriages in which we become just too tired to do the work of making them last?  I’m writing this to urge you, if you’re tempted to give up on someone, DON’T! The Bible is full of lost causes! Jairus’ daughter. The demoniac of Gadara. Lazarus. Gomer, the estranged wife of the prophet Hosea.  Peter, in prison. If you will persist in prayer, that person may be the next “dead man” to stagger into your midst, alive and set free from the clutches of Satan!

Who prayed for you? Now, for whom will you pray WITHOUT GIVING UP? “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9 ESV)

Lord, raise up an army of lost causes, and may their testimonies of deliverance shake open the doors where others are held captive!