As I sit here in front of one of our church facilities that, as you can see, is
in the process of being torn down—a facility that we purchased near around
the mid-80s that extended our ability to have our
children's program, our school, and our technology center operating out of it—
we're getting ready to make way for a much larger facility designed to
offer classrooms and training and seminars and fellowship called The Grove.
I can't help but think, as I look at the dismantling process, that this facility
is going through about the life of Joseph and the various detours that God
took him through that included some dismantling of his comfort level, some
breaking down of his conveniences, in order to do something much bigger that
God had in mind for him. God put him in the pit in order to take him to the palace.
He was accused falsely of rape, which caused him to wind up being in
prison, in order to get him to Egypt to teach him lessons in leadership so that
he could fulfill his ultimate purpose and programing. So as I sit here on these
steps and I look at walls being torn out and now down the studs, and not too long
from now will be totally collapsed. It's the end of an era since the mid 80s,
but to inaugurate a brand-new era with a 35,000 foot facility called The Grove.
We're going to have to tear some things down to get relevant to where we are
today, and that's what God often has to do with us. He has to get rid of
yesterday so we can move on to tomorrow. Because, if it keeps yesterday in place,
then we can't build what we need here tomorrow. And if He keeps your yesterday
in place, He can't take you to where He wants you
to go tomorrow. So when He starts tearing things out, let Him, because He's trying
to construct something brand-new, relevant, to the time you're living in, to
the experiences you are having, and to the impact He wants you to make. We have
to be willing to let go of some things in yesterday in order to get what He has
for us tomorrow. Like Joseph, whether let go of some history, let go of some
relationships, let go of some evil even that had been done to him, in order to
experience what God had for him. God often has to remodel us, tear down some
walls, remove some impediments, because what we had yesterday just doesn't fit
for where He's taking us tomorrow. So as you look at the remodeling that's
going on in your life, the detours—you had one plan and God comes up with
another one—just realize God does it for good so you can say like Joseph, "It may
have been evil along the way, but you brought me to this place—a place of
power, usefulness, and of impact." Yes, I'm getting ready to say goodbye to a
facility that has done us good over a lot of years, but it's had it's
inconveniences. In fact, as we tore it down, we found some things in that—whoa—
I'm glad we were tearing you down because it could have caused some greater damage,
just didn't know it. God is in the process of remodeling us, to tear down
the old, to give us the new, because where He's taking you, where he's taking me,
where he's taking us, is better and bigger than where we've come from.