I've Been Thinking About This…

God’s plan is always the best – but it feels as if sometimes we’ve got to get pushed through a fence before we’re on the right track.

Abram was called by God into a new direction (Gen 12:1-4). At 75 – at a time when most of us are long settled down into retirement – he was called from a comfortable path living in his father’s house to a completely new land. By the end of his life, Abram would agree that God’s plan for him was great (Gen 24:1). But in order to get there, Abram had to get pushed through a fence to get to the other side.

Jacob was a momma’s boy – preferred to cook and stay with the tents rather than go out to hunt (Gen 25:28-29). He conned his brother Esau out of the birthright, then stole Esau’s blessing (Gen 27). He ran away and walked a very different path from the one he started out on, but he had to get pushed through the fence to get to the real blessing.

Joseph was daddy’s favorite and knew it. He had a good life, although he was a spoiled show-off who ratted on his brothers at every possible opportunity (Gen 37:2-3) – so much so that they hated him to the point of deciding to murder him. Through the fence, his path had him sold into slavery down in Egypt, where in one step he moved from being an imprisoned slave to the top man in the country. When he got to the end of his life he thought God’s plan was great (Gen 50:20). But what a fence he was pushed through!

Moses was brought up like a prince (Ex 2:10) – the best education, the best food, the best of everything. His path took a sudden turn at 40 when he killed a man and ran away (Ex 2:12-15); then another swerve when he encountered God in the wilderness (Ex 3). At the end of his life he would say that God’s plan was the best, but it was a strange path to get there – through the fence.

Rahab was on a foul path – she started out as a prostitute in a terrible culture, and was desperate to leave it – when she risked everything to help the Israelite spies (Josh 2:1-6). She didn’t have to be pushed through a fence – she ran at it full speed, head first! Her old path should have led to her death as a citizen of Jericho (Josh 6:21), or death for being a prostitute; instead, her new path led her to redemption, marriage, wealth and inclusion into the blood-line that resulted in the birth of David and ultimately the Messiah (Matt 1:5).

Ruth thought she was on a pretty good path, marrying a man from Israel – until he died, along with his brother and his father. Then she could have stayed safe with her own people, but instead traveled back to Israel with her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16), both of them hopeless widows … and on the other side of that fence married Rahab’s son Boaz.

Ruth’s great-grandson David was a shepherd who started on a quiet life in the fields until God pushed him through some fences – the fight with Goliath (1 Sam 17:50); the subsequent flight from an increasingly insane Saul (starts at 1 Sam 18:8) – until Saul’s death and events subsequent to that redirected his path into the palace.

Over in the New Testament, James and John had a fairly steady life as fishermen; then, like the other disciples, they met Jesus and everything changed. Pushed through the fence (of leaving their livelihood – Matt 4:21-22), they began following Jesus round the country and eventually across the world.

Paul had a wonderful path ahead of him as a highly-educated Pharisee who was also a Roman citizen; brilliant connections and prospects. Then he was pushed through the fence on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3ff). He traveled throughout the Mediterranean basin; founded church after church; wrote a third of the New Testament. He was also beaten, stoned, imprisoned, shipwrecked, left for dead, hated, opposed at every turn. He would say that it was a great path to be on (Acts 20:24).

Time and again, when God gets hold of people in the Bible, they encounter this pattern to their lives: they start out walking along one path, then they encounter God and suddenly there’s a right-turn into and straight through a fence and onto a new and improved path – one that they would never have considered (or even thought possible) before that encounter. And not just in the Bible – God works that way today as well. Moving toward the fence is probably the scariest thing in life, but upon breaking through you find the fence was really there to pen you in; you’ve broken out of the boundary that was containing you. That’s the thing – there’s a great life that God wants to give us over there, far better than the one we’ve got right now – and usually (perhaps ALWAYS) He has to force us to take the gift. Sort of “Break us to make us” kind of thing.

Oh, that we could all know that Divine push straight through the fence.

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