“ Sometimes God calls us to leave one thing before he tells us exactly what ’ s coming next .”
walk away from .
Maybe you can ’ t imagine walking away from your job or at least the industry you ’ ve been working in for a number of years . Perhaps you ’ re in a dating relationship you can ’ t imagine walking away from . It could be you ’ ve lived in your city or town for a number of years , and you could never see yourself moving away . It could even be you simply have a habit that is so familiar , you wouldn ’ t recognize your life without it . I ’ m not suggesting God is necessarily asking you to leave any of these things . But what if he did ? What if he has something different , even better , for you ?
I have noticed a pattern recently , simply by paying attention to what my friends are experiencing in their lives . Sometimes God has to take something away from us before we can ever receive the new thing he wants to do in our lives .
“ Sometimes God calls us to leave one thing before he tells us exactly what ’ s coming next .”
I have a very close friend who served as the right-hand person to the CEO of a technology start-up in Silicon Valley . They had a great relationship , and the CEO had the utmost trust in my friend . Eventually their company was acquired by a major corporation . Because so many people in our church work in this space , I ’ ve come to learn acquisitions usually mean things change in a major way . Under pressure from the new company ’ s leadership , the CEO let my friend go from his position . As you can imagine , this crushed him . It upset and confused him and left him wondering if he had what it takes to be successful . Since then , he has been able to consult with multiple start-up companies . This is just my opinion , but I think it ’ s right : God had to get him out of one job before he could step into these other opportunities .
When it comes to stories about leaving the familiar , I think we can learn a lot from Abraham . I love the following brief summary of how he lived out his faith . The book of Hebrews says this about him :
By faith Abraham , when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance , obeyed and went , even though he did not know where he was going . By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country ; he lived in tents , as did Isaac and Jacob , who were heirs with him of the same promise . For he was looking forward to the city with foundations , whose architect and builder is God . ( 11:8 – 10 )
Sometimes God calls us to leave one thing before he tells us exactly what ’ s coming next . This was the case for Abraham . It ’ s hard enough for us to leave the familiar when we know what ’ s ahead . How could he leave when he didn ’ t even know where he was going ? I think he was able to do this because he became convinced of something we must become convinced of : Knowing “ who ” is even more important than knowing “ what .” Because
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