The Time is Now
Exodus 35:21-26 (ESV) And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments . … 25 And every skillful woman spun with her hands, and they all brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. 26 All the women whose hearts stirred them to use their skill spun the goats' hair.
Exodus 36:2 (ESV) And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.
We wonder about what the Lord is assigning us to do, but it’s simple. Whatever He has given us wisdom to do, and has stirred our hearts up to do, this is our current assignment.
I have missed so many opportunities and assignments from the Lord. Though I had wisdom to do them, and my heart was stirred up for them, reasoning and unbelief paralyzed me. I reasoned that what He had stirred me up to do was for some future time. I did not understand His flow. What He gives us in wisdom and provision is for now. He does give us vision about the future sometimes, but when we see that resources and knowhow are currently available to us, the time to use them is now.
With natural things, I was once a hoarder of sorts. Friends and family would give me nice gifts, like lotions and scented soaps and colognes and candles and such, and I would so cherish them that I would stash them away for some special, future occasion — an occasion that never seemed to come. Eventually, they would lose their scent or become rancid and disgusting. The things intended to refresh my life I stacked in a pile for the future and, though I had good intentions, I squandered their usefulness.
With assignments from the Lord, I had a similar mindset. I was not intentionally procrastinating, but I would attend to what was immediate or urgent, rather than attending to what was most important in His eyes. I reasoned that His calling needed such special circumstances and attention that I could never seem to find the proper space for it. It was easier to attend to what was immediately before me and protect myself from fears and uncertainties than to venture by faith into His assignments, things I had no idea how to accomplish! But 2 Peter 1:9 (AMPC) says that someone like this is “spiritually shortsighted, seeing only what is near to him.”
We can’t be stagnant swamps. What He gives us, we are not to hold; we are to release it. We are to sow the seed the Lord gives us. Our Lord is extravagant. He doesn’t store up things, preserving them for future use. We cannot bury our treasures (Matthew 25:25) or tuck away our blessings in an handkerchief (Luke 19:20). The Israelites tried to store up manna, though He had warned them about it, and they found that their blessing bred worms and stank.
And the Lord gives us everyday examples. He sculpts a wildly beautiful sunset, splashed with strokes of red and orange and blue and purple. We marvel at it and try to preserve it – upon canvases, and in photographs. But while we labor to capture it, He moves on, and we find that His sunsets last only a few minutes. He flows on, creating the next scene, maybe a moonlit night or a cool summer morning to make us marvel. He creates a thing, it fulfills his purpose, and then it is gone. But we don’t cease to marvel at His work; He will create another.
Consider a bloom. The Lord refreshes us and instructs us with its stunning beauty and its intoxicating fragrance, and then it fades and is gone, and the next one comes.
There is a flow by which the Holy Spirit operates, and we can get in it, or allow fear, intimidation, inferiority, pride, whatever, to trap us outside of it. We are like the manna or the sunset or the bloom, soon gone. His word says that our lives are a vapor (James 4:14). He places us in His kingdom, and gives us wisdom, influence, and skillfulness with particular tasks. He gives us all the resources we need to accomplish His work. Hopefully, we fulfill our purposes and then pass off the scene into our homes in heaven.
Prayer…
“Lord, put me in Your flow. Keep me there. Show me where it is, and I’ll jump in. I have been a hoarder, trying to store and preserve Your provisions and giftings and resources for future use. But this is not Your flow. Put me in Your flow!”