After the Fire Goes OutSample

LEARN RATHER THAN LAMENT 

Every fire goes out. No matter what we do to keep it burning, it will still go out. It is inevitable; and the moment we accept that is the moment we learn how to move when the fire is gone rather than lament for what we’ve lost. 

Moses tended sheep for 40 years. He tended his father-in-law's sheep for longer than some people have been alive. Imagine Moses—excited and energized to start his first day at work, spending time with his new wife and in-laws. Imagine how zealous he was at 20; now imagine him at 60. That same zeal is no longer there. Moses’s fire was gone. 

Our fires will burn out. The zeal we began with will not be the same zeal we end with, and we will wonder, “Why am I still here?” God knew exactly when you would burn out, and He knows exactly when to start your fire again. 

“If God knew when I would feel burnt out,” you’ll say, “why would He let me go through all of that?” Because everything you have experienced up to this point has been for His purpose, not your pain. It has all been a practice run for what is to come. We as a society spend so much time swimming for the next ocean that we forget to learn to swim in the waters we are in. 

Are you rushing God to move you? Have you learned all you needed to learn in the exact spot you’re in before He elevates you to a new level? When you have learned all that He wants to teach you, that is when you will be ready to be moved. 

Former basketball player Allen Iverson infamously ranted about practice and his relationship with it. We do much the same. We can’t groan about practice when God is prepping us for the big game. Moses spent 40 years tending sheep, learning how to gently guide, walk, lead, and drive a group. None of that direction went to waste; it was repurposed for Moses’s leading the children of Israel for the remainder of his life. 

When you feel as if your experiences—or lack thereof—were all for nothing, remember that what you have been through was a test run for what is to come.