Whatever You Do, Don’t Miss This One Thing

Sometimes I’m really a downer, I know.

I felt it myself recently when I read a Facebook advertisement by a well-meaning, sparkly Christian personality. She was advertising workshops to help women discover God’s wonderful unique plan for each of them.

I get it. I’m not opposed to this concept. If you attend her workshop, I’m confident you’ll be blessed, and God will work through it and through you. I want God’s wonderful plan for me. I do believe God wants us freed to be our individual unique selves, the ideas of us He had in His mind at our conception.

But, here’s the downer part: I pictured Betsie ten Boom signing up for this woman’s seminar and I worried that our cultural perspective is skewed.

Are we so focused on self-actualization and personal fulfillment that we set ourselves up to miss God’s perspective on what His plan may actually be for our lives this side of glory?

I’ll bet Betsie ten Boom had dreams.

I’ll bet she had heart desires, talents, gifts, hidden skills, yearnings of the soul, and she clearly pursued God. Betsie was Christ-like,

heroic, daring, and brave when she and her sister, Corrie, risked everything to hide Jews from the Nazis. I’m sure she made every dangerous choice prayerfully trusting God all the way.

But as it turns out, following Jesus led Betsie through Ravensbruck concentration camp in Nazi Germany.

She continued to follow Him even there. Betsie testified to others that Jesus was present with them in the camps, and she received visions of the work she and her sister would do once they were freed, but Corrie pursued those visions alone because Betsie died in Ravensbruck.

She was freed but not to life on this side of glory. This was God’s wonderful plan for Betsie’s life.

And one day, we will all clearly see the magnificence and wonder of it but there is no romanticizing a death surrounded by cruelty, mistreatment, and bondage in a flea-infested concentration camp far from comfort and loved ones.

If Betsie had been pursuing her best life “now”, she might have missed the true object of her life’s pursuit – Jesus Christ.

In following her Savior, she found life that transcended even a miserable death beneath the boot of evil. And as that boot descended onto her throat, she cried out her testimony for Jesus Christ and we can still hear her voice today.

Revelation 12:11 ESV reads, “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Where is the seminar for that calling? Where is the workshop where we learn to die to all we hoped and dreamed as we follow Jesus into the deepest pit so we can call out that His light shines even there?

Because, loved ones, if you have found Jesus, you have found everything. Even if following Him has led you to broken people and places. Even if following Him has uncovered the brokenness in you. Even if your dreams elude you – if Jesus hasn’t, then you are living a life that leads to more life, eternal life, not death.

I believe it’s okay to pursue our unique callings, but our primary pursuit should always be Jesus. And we need to be careful that we aren’t so busy seeking our wonderful, best life that we forget to serve Him and those around us in the moment in which we find ourselves now.

Betsie ten Boom served her fellow prisoners and testified to the presence of Jesus Christ in the bowels of the Nazi killing machine – that’s a wonderful life – the likes of which I pray I’m spared, but it brings me needed perspective in this modern age of personal glory.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were about to be thrown in the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to false gods, they made this proclamation:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel 3:17-18

Even if I don’t find my wonderful personal calling, even if I die in a concentration camp, even if I’m thrown into a fire, there is only One God, and this God IS life.

So if it’s life we want – it’s Him we want. THAT’s what you don’t want to miss, loved ones. If we miss our calling, if we don’t achieve our goals and dreams, if we never find our passion, we can still live an abundant life in Christ if we don’t miss Him.

Live like you have forever, my friends, because if we follow Jesus, we do.

Whatever you do, Don't Miss This One Thing https://t.co/s3ydLhwUKO #leadershipdevelopment #Jesus

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) October 16, 2019