Have you ever been stuck in a rut? Has it ever seemed as if you couldn’t get ahead? Have you ever felt as if you needed help from someone, somewhere but help never came? Stop waiting for someone else to come and rescue you. Don’t put the arrival of your breakthrough into the hands of someone else, the key to your miracle is always within your reach!
I believe God has given me the following principles just for you! These simple truths will help you get moving again and get on with the rest of your life.
1. Use what you have.
We could spend all day talking about what we don’t have. “I don’t have anyone to help me”, “I don’t have any money”, ” I don’t have talent”, “I don’t have a wife or husband”, “I don’t have a car”, “I don’t have a house”… Focusing your attention on what you don’t have will keep you in a rut or can even stop your forward progress.
Nobody has everything but everybody has something. God will never require something from you that you don’t have. But it is very common in scripture to see Him expect people to use what they do have.
A poor widow came to Elisha for help in 2 Kings. Her husband had died and she was about to lose her two sons to slavery in exhange for her debts. So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” 2 Kings 4:2
Notice that Elisha didn’t ask her what she needed or what she lacked, he asked, “what do you have.” She felt as if she had nothing and she said so. Then she remembered a little jar of oil. And that was enough! God didn’t require what she didn’t have, he used what she did have. The key to your miracle is within your reach!
Moses was in need of some encouragement when preparing to face Pharoah and demand the release of 3 million slaves. “Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ” So the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A rod.” Exodus 4:1-2
God used something he already had. The answer was not way out in space somewhere or something that Moses couldn’t quite grasp, he was already holding it. “What is in your hand?”
Samson killed 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. That did not happen because donkey jawbones are some kind of secret weapon. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. Judges 15:15
“He reached out his hand”, it was within his reach. Use what you have! The list of things you don’t have may be a mile long, but God will not leave you cut off. The key to your miracle is always within your reach. It was in the Widows house, it was in Moses’ hand, it was within Samson’s reach.
We see in Mark chapter 6, one of the largest miracles that Jesus ever performed among the people when He fed the five thousand. When the disciples told Jesus the multitudes were hungry, they were identifying the problem. That’s easy to do. Most of us don’t need any help with that. Their solution was to send them away. Let’s get rid of the problem! But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?” Mark 6:37
In other words, “We don’t have enough, we have so little, we can’t do anything”. But He said to them in verse 38, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”
That’s not much among 5000 people, but it was something and something is better than nothing in God’s economy. God could have done the miracle without the little boy’s lunch but He didn’t. We don’t get to sit on the sidelines and watch God solve all our problems, we are called to get in the game and bring something to the table. What do you have? Start using it and let God multiply it.
2. Do What you can.
Another lie that people believe that sets them up for failure is, “You can be anything you want to be”. Well that’s not true either! If you are 40 years old and fat, you can’t be an Olympic gymnast. In fact, if you’re over 40 you might as well go ahead and give up your dream to be an Olympian or a Pro football star or a Major league baseball player!
I am roughly the same age as Emmitt Smith the Hall of Fame running back for the Dallas Cowboys. When he was in his prime we were about the same age, I read that he was 5’11’ and 185 pounds. At that time I too was 5’11’ and 185 pounds. For a split second I wondered… But it was not to be! We may be the same size and weight, but we were put together differently! He has what it takes to be a football star and I don’t! That’s not an insult to me, I just can’t do what he does.
“You can be anything you want to be” is just not a true statement. ” You can be anything God wants you to be” is true. Quit wasting time trying to be something you’re not and trying to do something you aren’t anointed or equipped to do and do what you can.
“I can’t do anything!” is another lie that people believe and it keeps them in a rut. Stop rehearsing all the things you can’t do. It would take up all our time to think about the many things we can’t do. It can be very depressing! And it won’t get you anywhere.
Doing nothing can be worse than doing the wrong thing. Doing nothing is very seldom productive and it’s unscriptural. Maybe you’ve heard this before, but it’s true, “Do what you can and God will do what you can’t.” Do something lest you do nothing!
There were four lepers trapped outside the gates of the city of Samaria which was under siege by the army of Syria. The people in the city were starving and it was only a matter of time until they either died or were conquered. It seemed that they could do nothing of consequence and it seemed that God was doing nothing for them. Then the lepers had an idea, “Let’s do something!” …they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.” 2 Kings 7:3-6
What a great question! “Why sit we here till we die?” That’s another way of saying, “Let’s do what we can.” Verse 5: And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one was there. For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses, the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!”
They didn’t do much because they couldn’t do much, but they did what they could. It was a small act but a great victory. God knows our limitations. He is just and fair and will not expect more than we can deliver. But many times He’s waiting for us to get moving. What can you do right now? Start with that.
Remember the parable of the talents? One man had five and gained five more, another had two and gained two more. The man who had one didn’t use it. He went and hid it. He believed that because he didn’t have much he couldn’t do anything.”And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.” Matthew 25:25
You know the story, he got no reward and lost what little he had. All because he didn’t do what he could. The Master said, “At least you could have put it in the bank and it would have earned interest.” The lesson here is that doing something small is better than doing nothing at all. Get God’s power working for you. Use what you have and do what you can.
3. Start where you are.
When things don’t seem to be working and you feel like you’re not moving forward in your life, it’s easy to think you need to change locations. Or to think that if you were somewhere else things would be different. Many times this is just an excuse to do nothing where you are.
The truth is, if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do where you are, you’ll probably have the same problems somewhere else. While there may be times when God tells you to move to a different location that probably won’t happen today. Avoid thoughts and beliefs that constantly put your success in the future. Your life can begin to change now, right where you are! Start using what you have and doing what you can right where you are! You may want to go to the world but the doors aren’t open. Go win your house or your neighborhood.
Many people we see today that have great success in life started doing what they do in places of relative obscurity. You may feel like you’re wasting your efforts in laboring faithfully where you are. You may think no one sees or cares what you are doing because of where you are, but God sees and God cares.
When you work with God, He knows exactly what you have, what you can do and where you are. Give Him something to work with, something to multiply. He can get you from where you are to where you ultimately want to be. You may think your efforts are weak and fruitless, but go ahead and get started and trust God. He is a deliverer, a multiplier and a promoter and He’s really good at what He does!