FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, PULL THE TRIGGER
Ephesians 5:17
Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
This morning I was told a story from last teacher at Frontier School of the Bible. Ron told me of a mile deer hunt he had taken in Southern Utah where he was starting a new church plant. All of his normal hunting buddies were still up in Northern Utah where he normally hunted. He was in a new already hunting all alone.
It was a hot day and he had tracked up the mountain a long ways. He wasn't sure where he was exactly and he began to question if he should shoot a buck if the opportunity arose. Just then a good muledeer buck jump from his bed and ran out to about 150 yards, there he stopped broadside and looked back.
Ron raised his rifle and put his crosshairs behind the bucks shoulder and began to squeeze the trigger. Then the thought of the heat and the uncertainty of his location crept into his mind. He held off not sure of what to do and he eventually lowered the rifle. The buck caught a reflection of the sun off of the scope and ran away. Ron began feeling like he really wanted that buck, and the buck stopped at w09 yards. He turned broadside again and Ron again put the crosshairs on his chest and contemplated the situation. He almost pulled the trigger.. then doubt overcame him again and he lowered his rifle and let the buck walk away.
In James14:13-17, we read of making plans without God's input. We also read about doing the right thing when we have the opportunity.
"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them."
God has a plan set before us and He has placed a calling on our lives. How do we know this plan, this calling. We learn it through prayer, reading our Bible and surrounding ourselves with those that love the Lord and love us. We can stand with our trigger on the finger, ready to make the shot and question ourselves to the point where we freeze up and don't allow God to work in out lives.
God gives us free choice, but He wants us to use that choice and to live out His will. When we freeze we miss the blessing that God has set before us. He has set a life target in front of us and waits on us to take the shot when He gives us the opportunity
It's for our sake that we learn to make decisions, but it's for the sake of Heaven and the Lord's work that we "pull the trigger" when God has lined up our crosshairs on the target that He has set before you.
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