We all have reasons to give up, life tends to seem unbearable at times. Purpose and fulfillment have those moments where they seem scarcely unattainable. We all have those moments when we just want to walk away from everything. Jesus is our prime example and on occasions we see him walking away from his current place to “run off” to focus on another thing. If Jesus who has moments where he says, “let this go on without me,” we surely can expect to feel the same way.
We live in a world where we are encouraged to partake in meaningless activities, download pointless apps and take part in conversation that is headed nowhere, so our mind gets swayed from making a lasting impact on the world. We tend to get lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and we forget that there is meaning to this all.
The thing I find fascinating about the Bible is its ability to speak to a person very specifically through an event that isn’t a mass miracle, or a something that impacts the entire world, but it’s message is about a life changing moment with one person encountering God in a unique and distinct way.
Peter and John are walking up to King Herod’s Temple, they came up near the eastern gate and saw a man, in the dirt sitting, begging for alms (Acts 3). This Man who is a beggar, homeless, abandoned, thought less of, and just beaten down by life, but his destiny in God was to sit at this Gate called beautiful?
Have you ever felt like your current situation is nowhere near what God has called you to live in, but still you’re in the right place? You’re in an ugly circumstance, but a beautiful destiny is approaching.
The word beautiful used there in the Greek is ho-rah’-yos, it means something becoming beautiful, belonging to the right moment and flourishing, scholars tell us it alludes to the growth of a flower.
This man sat at this destination for years, I can empathize with the way he must have felt; he must have felt like walking away, or even ending it all, he was probably spit on, cursed at and treated like the dirt he sat on. No one knew this man, they knew him as the beggar, the lame man. Have you ever been categorized by your faults or shortcomings? Are you the druggie, the girl who had the baby too early, the dropout…
I can hear the irony in this when this man would cry out to God and say, “God take me to a beautiful place, this can’t be where you want me.” And God says, “ No, this is right where I want you.”
In my book The Simplicity of Your Destiny I end this chapter by saying, “Don’t ever forget you are beautiful, although your life, your past and your present situation may be ugly. You are beautiful, you are on beautiful ground. Every crack and crevice of life has beauty to baste in its wisdom. Lets explore the beauty of this life together.”
Manna and Coffee 