On July, 31, of 2006 I received an anonymous note. The first line of that note reads, “You are a prisoner of promise!” As I was rummaging through some old boxes in my office yesterday I came across that note and read it again. It is a note of encouragement and prophecy over my life and ministry.
I am chewing on what the phrase “prisoner of promise” means. I am a dreamer. I have always been a dreamer. God has always given me vision for the places I have served Him. Those visions have been accompanied with various promises about what the Lord was going to do in and through me. At times those vision have been embarrassingly large. So much so that I have rarely talked about them in private or public. God has been the one to put those dreams and visions in me but as of yet, I have not seen many of them come true, especially as it relates to my writing ministry.
I am thinking about a prayer retreat I was on standing by a lake when the Lord poured an almost overwhelming vision of my life as a pastor, preacher, and author. There was a similar experience when our family was on vacation many years ago. I got up early and had my quiet time at a picnic table overlooking Lake Palestine. God used [Eph 2:10] to confirm His call and His destiny for my life. Similar experiences have occurred in hotel rooms, at conferences, in my vehicle while driving over and over again. Each time the message was the same; God is going to use me in significant ways beyond what I can fathom as a pastor and as an author.
I cannot put the depth of the call the Lord has put on my life to write. I am sitting at my desk and the desire to write has consumed me. I am already prepared for our mid-week message tonight and so in the time I have before lunch I feel compelled to write. I want my writing to point people toward God and be the catalyst that gives people a greater hunger for Him and His word. I find myself pounding the keys of this computer writing as fast as my fingers will type, hoping, praying, trusting, that it will all make sense to someone and that God would use this in people’s lives for the glory of His name. For the most part I never know if the Lord is using these writings. Still I am compelled to compose sentence after sentence, blog after blog, and book after book.
When I think about the phrase “prisoner of promise” that is a painful phrase for me. Though I have been writing since I was a child I have never enjoyed success as an author. I never have written anything with the motivation to get rich or to be famous. I simply have these messages that get into my mind and heart and I have to get them out. So I write for Him alone. Part of that prisoner of promise thing is the hope and belief that God will use my writings on a broader scale. You see I have a clear vision for writing.
I want to have the ability to have my resources printed and distributed all over the world. I also want the freedom to be able to give those books away to people who truthfully cannot afford them in faith. I do not want gouge the reading public with prices that pay for others extravagant lifestyles. At this point of the three books I have written and published I know I have given away far more than I have ever sold. I have a vision of people from all over the world desiring to read the messages God continues to give me and having access to them without cost prohibiting them. That vision includes God using those books and articles to last far beyond my lifetime so that after I am dead people will stumble across those writings and their faith will be ignited and their passion to know and to follow God. I can write but I cannot make those things happen. God holds those keys. So I live with the constant tension between learning to be content in all circumstances, like Paul challenges us to in [Phil 4:11], and yet knowing that God has greater things in store for me having a discontent to see those things become reality by faith. God ultimately holds my future and so I persevere as a prisoner of promise.
Remember the note I referred to at the beginning of this blog? I would like for you to read the last few lines. “What He (God) is about to do is bigger than you think. It is also different than you have ever seen. Pastors will one day be coming to you to get wisdom. Leaders from many places will read your books and seek your counsel. So don’t give up! Stay the course.” It would be easy for me to dismiss all of that except over the course of the last twenty years God has continually reassured me of very similar things. From the first moments He called me into ministry I felt I was a man with a great destiny. I felt I have been in prison for years waiting and at times wondering why I have not seen that destiny fulfilled but the promise has never waned. It is still there and causing me to keep seeking God in prayer.
Earlier this year the Lord instructed me to give myself to writing. I have tried to do this when I have had time. I write for the Lord and out of obedience to Him. I write in faith believing one day someone is going to read my writings who hold the keys to unlock my future in print. I don’t know how or when that will happen but I keep pressing on as a prisoner of promise. I am shackled to these dreams and cannot walk away from them.
What are you a prisoner of promise about? What dreams or visions did God put in your heart and you continue to wait for Him to make become reality? May each of us find a word of encouragement from [Gal 6:9] “Let us not lose heart in doing good for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”
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