Do the Last Thing God Told You to Do.
My current bible study group is studying the book of John, and because of it, I’ve been meditating on certain passages of scripture these past few weeks.
When reading the Word one Sunday morning, amidst a baby crying, a toddler wanting my attention, and my thirst reminding this breastfeeding mama to drink more water, the Lord gave me something to chew on when reflecting on these few verses.
Take a quick read:
19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Context first. This passage comes about during a time when John the Baptist was calling people to repentance before the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
John the Baptist was drawing crowds of people, baptizing them, calling religious leaders and those in authority out on their sins. He appeared to be something real special.
Seeing these crowds, the Levites and the priests asked John the Baptist, in short, are you the Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah?
John the Baptist denied being any of these titles, but note John the Baptist’s response at the end of their litany of questions.
John the Baptist says, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
John the Baptist may not have given a clean title for what “he was.” But he held pristine clarity regarding what he was supposed to be DOING.
Y’all.
Pause right there.
The priests and the Levites were searching for a title from John the Baptist. Instead of gifting them a prepared label, John the Baptist shares what he was sent “to do.”
Why did I chew on this one passage for a few weeks?
I learned something from this passage.
Let me share.
In following the Lord, I’m learning that my life trajectory may not fit nicely into a title. Instead of worrying about titles at all, I’m learning to tether myself to the sails of the Holy Spirit and cling to the last thing He told me “to do” rather than the titles I’d like to give myself in hopes of making sense of things,
in hopes of making myself feel more at ease,
in hopes of making others feel more comfortable,
in hopes of making life feel simpler than what it is…
in hopes of not having to sit and rest in the mysterious and unpredictable ways the Lord chooses to move in and through my life.
John the Baptist didn’t feel the need to title his mission.
Take a second to soak that in.
If you’re not careful, you’ll allow a title to become your identity. And instead of serving the Lord with WHATEVER He tells you to do, you can become enslaved to the title you’ve arrested yourself under and become a faithful servant to that title instead of the Lord.
What do I mean by this?
Often we associate “what” we are doing with “who we are,” and the moment the Lord calls us to do something else, we struggle with the transition because we placed so much of our identity in the last thing He told us to do.
The ONLY IDENTITY you should hold tightly on to is being a beloved child of God.
Being a beloved child of God may mean taking on a job that you never went to school for. Or staying home to take care of your kiddos at the peak of your career. Or preaching the Gospel to school children in another country even though you’ve been a homemaker for __ amount of years. Or becoming an entrepreneur after being in corporate for decades.
Your title that you prefer to comfortably sit in should never hold so much power over you that you SIFT what the Lord commands you to do in certain seasons just because it doesn’t fit your “supposed” identity that YOU’VE created for yourself.
I’ll get personal.
When I first began teaching school after college, I figured I’d teach for a bit, go to medical school, and then ultimately “become a doctor.” Throughout my life, I knew I’d be a doctor. But then the Lord told me to stay home with our kids. And then He told me to not only stay home but then to homeschool. And then He told me to learn about health from a more holistic perspective. And then to blog about how I see Him in my everyday life. And then to write stories and read good fiction and cook good food and learn how to bake sourdough bread. Haha, you get my drift.
You see how one can feel scattered because none of these directives fit into any nice little title.
In doing the last thing the Lord has told you to do, be careful to not subconsciously place yourself into a limiting box and not be open to the multitude of directions the Lord may take you after your initial step of obedience.
This is not a license to not be diligent, faithful, or focused.
This is not a license to not seek Godly counsel for wisdom before trying to faithfully carry out the Lord’s commands.
This is not a license to not have vision and goals.
No, be diligent, faithful, focused.
Seek Godly counsel. Make your vision plain. Just don’t refuse to obey simply because you don’t know how His leading fits into any nice label, or picture, or story, or identity that you’e been creating and thereby following.
In short, when asking yourself the question,” Who am I?”, may “what you do” not be the pinnacle for “who you are.”
Start here first. I am a beloved son/daughter of the Most High. I serve, love, and am devoted to Him, His thoughts, His ways, and His plans above anything else. And through that, I move to where He tells me to go, when He tells me to go, and how He wants me to go.
In doing so, it may not look like a pretty understood picture. But continue doing the last thing He told you to do no matter how scattered, unproductive, and illogical it may seem. And know that nothing He calls you to do is above you or beneath you. You only think those thoughts when you identify yourself with anything outside of being a child of God.
I probably should end this blog post here, but one last thing.
Although John the Baptist denied being the prophet Elijah…technically, John the Baptist did come in the Spirit of Elijah. But you don’t see John the Baptist sitting around pondering the acceptance of this title. John the Baptist simply knew that He was supposed to be making straight the way of the Lord and that’s exactly what He did.
I wonder though, what if John the Baptist did recognize that he was the one who had come in the spirit of Elijah? Would this title have made him doubt his life’s trajectory once he ended up in jail? Would he have wrongfully blamed himself for getting it all wrong after learning that he was about to be beheaded?
I wonder how differently John the Baptist would’ve moved if he was trying to figure out how life fit into a certain box.
Bringing it back to myself, I can’t sincerely make sense of my life in this current season. Typically, I have a sense of an upward trajectory towards a certain goal that I can see. I can touch. I can feel.
Instead, I feel like life is barreling towards me and the Holy Spirit is carrying me through the day, the week, the month, the yearssss with varying directives that at times don’t make sense to me.
I don’t know the end of this story He’s creating in my life for His glory. But I know to trust in being faithful in the last thing He has told me to do.
That begins with simply writing this blog post lol.
May this be of any encouragement to you. Do the last thing He told you to do :), beloved child of God.
-Pondered Thought