What God is Doing…

Earlier today, I was meeting with a man I have been coaching since September. He has had an extremely successful career but has been out of work for nearly a year. We met today because all of the sudden he has two opportunities.

Both are better than he could have ever dreamed.  And yet, he confessed to me that he was relatively unemotional when he received the news. “I hung up the phone, got on my knees, thanked the Lord, but there was no joy, no tears, no anything.”

What was wrong with him? Did this mean that he shouldn’t take the job? That he should wait for something better? That he wasn’t really thankful?

“No,” I said, “at least I don’t think so.” I continued you to tell him: “The one thing I know about God is that he is committed to ruthlessly and systematically destroy every idol we have.” I went on to share with my friend how writing and publishing books was an idol for me. I thought that a book would validate my existence, that being a published author would somehow make me the person God created me to be. Well, as it turned out, I am a published author, but over the course of the years it has taken me to become that, God has simultaneously destroyed the idol that it was to me. He demolished it to the extent that I just had two books come out in the last month, and I have hardly given them a thought (to our marketing team’s chagrin). Now, I will give them a thought, and I will celebrate the accomplishment, and I will market them – but the truth is, the power that publishing once held on me is gone.

The same thing for my friend. It was just a job, and he had learned over the course of the year of not having one that there was more to life than one, that there was more to him than being employed.

God had destroyed the idol. Now he could take the job or not – either way, it would never have a hold on him.

This is the truth: God is in the demolition business.

Maybe this will help you see your past in a new light. It has for me.

But God is not only in the demolition business. God is also in the restoration business. As ruthless and systematic as God is destroying our idols, he has just as passionately committed to restoring our humanity.

As it turns out, this job had been in the works for fourteen months, two months longer than my friend had been out of work. The employer had kept his name on file and jumped as soon as the job was ready. She even told my friend to name his price. She would do everything in her power to match or exceed it. Wow!

But it is not about the money. You see, when my friend lost his job, he lost more than a paycheck. He lost part of his manhood. The truth is, and if you have ever been downsized you will agree with me, the hardest part of losing a job is not the loss of income, it is the loss of mojo. Well, God is committed to giving it back to you. No. Not just giving it back to you – but fully restoring it to a condition better than when you lost it!

That is God’s purposes: two of them at least. And with that in mind, may God do what it takes to destroy what needs destroying and restore what needs restoring in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.