An Assignment Greater Than You

The title came to me as the Lord was showing me something about what you’ll be reading. The text will come from 1 Samuel 16:1-13. I know this will be familiar to a lot of people, some of what I’ll say you might’ve heard before, or this will be brand new. Either way, I’m letting the Lord lead.

The second half of my dream was this: I was at my job and I had an altercation with someone and I just walked off the job. I went to my therapist and told her that if I go back to the job, I’m going to hurt somebody. Initially my dreams are a shock, but as the day progresses, they get revealed. And actually, my dreams over the past 3 months have a common denominator, and it’s that I have an assignment greater than myself. And I know a few of you reading this have an assignment greater than yourself. I’ll talk about the pros and cons about this later in this post.

Now 1 Samuel 16:1-13 was during the time when Saul was rejected as king and a new king was to be anointed. The Lord sent Samuel to Jesse to anoint one of his sons to be king. Now what struck my interest was the fact that Jesse didn’t even consider David to be the one. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jesse didn’t call David because he was not only the youngest, but he had an assignment (tending to the sheep), and Jesse wanted to ensure that David was on that task. But the Spirit of the Lord had a different plan. In verse 11, Samuel was like “do you have any more?” Jesse responded like this, “there remains the youngest AND (my emphasis) he keeps the sheep.” It wouldn’t surprised me if Jesse didn’t want Samuel to bother David, but again, the Lord had a different plan and told Jesse to get David. And of course, David was anointed to be king. During David’s anointing, he wasn’t groomed like his other brothers when they were presented. He was pulled from the sheep when he was anointed. The beauty of this scenario was that God doesn’t look on the appearance, but the heart. People can look good and put up a front, but their heart can be so dark!

Now David didn’t become king over Israel immediately. He would wait until Saul was dead. BUT, there were some things that David had to do before becoming king over Israel (and he would be the only one equipped to do it – such as take down Goliath). So, what can we take from this? Some of you reading this know that you have an assignment greater than you, and that’s truly a blessing from God.

I’ll start with the cons first: some of you know that you have an assignment greater than you, but you jump ahead of God by jumping into your assignment on your own strength. That’s dangerous and you are of course, out of order! Some will become prideful in that assignment and they will start parading in it for self-aggrandizement (or for bragging rights to look spiritual to others or perhaps to get the kudos from man). Again, you will be out of order!

The pros of having an assignment greater than you: you have been chosen in such a time as this. That means God has His hand over your life. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, you will be tried. At the same time, you may not have time to prepare for the call (in other words, things that God is doing in your life which are a blessing to you and to others are happening at a pace that you’re not expecting – and that’s actually a good thing). All you have to do is remain humble (and obedient), and be able to adjust your life (as to how you see it) to the will of God.

You Can't Quit Now

We all have a gift bestowed unto us by our Heavenly Father. A small disclaimer: when I say gift, it can be translated as talent, purpose, or calling. God has given it to us, and our responsibility is to use it for His glory to bless other people. Now as we go forth and pursue it, there will come a time where you will either be sidetracked or just feel like giving up (and there are countless reasons). Let’s detour for a second and talk from the Bible to show where people who didn’t quit though they had justifiable excuses to do so if they did.

1. Joseph was given a dream that would rescue his family from famine. After revealing his dream to his brothers, Joseph was sold as a slave and eventually faced hardships after being lied on by Potiphar’s wife. Joseph had an excuse to quit, but he didn’t and as a result, the Lord was with him.
2. Job was under satanic attack and lost a lot in his life. His wife wanted him to curse God and die. Job could’ve quit serving God, but he didn’t and as a result, the Lord double-blessed him.
3. The apostles were beaten for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They could’ve quit doing that to preserve their lives, but they didn’t and as a result, their ministry made an impact on the world (reference Acts 5:40-42).
4. Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den for praying to God. He could’ve quit for fear of his life, but he didn’t. As a result, Daniel made it known that God is a protector to those who love Him.
5. The three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fire that was 7x hotter than normal for refusing to bow their knee to the king. They could’ve quit serving God, but they didn’t. As a result, God walked through the fire with them.

What do we see here? If we’re serving God and bringing true glory to Him, He will always be with us. God is not blind to what trials we face.

Many of you have gifts that only you can do (and it has be expressed through the creative arts, through service, or through other means) that will bring glory to God and bless others tremendously. You must be determined and disciplined to fulfill your gift. If you don’t, you’re robbing yourself, God and others. You can’t quit now. The devil will throw many things at you to get you off course to make you quit. Keep your hands to the plow. We all need your gift just you all need my gift. Think back to when you wanted to quit something, but God gave you the strength to keep going – and it thrust you into your prophetic destiny. And I also want you to think back to when you started something and how you felt when you gave up. I would venture to say that when you kept going, you felt great and God extended your outreach. Trust me when I say that I know everything has a season; the objective is to stay obedient to Him at all times, so you don’t miss out when it’s your season. Even if you do, it will come back around again (provided you don’t remain disobedient).

I’ll even put this out there, there was a time in 2007 where I almost gave up on writing after an editor rejected my first book (Take It from Me). If some people didn’t encourage me to write, I would’ve been writing and making an impact on a few people. God allowed me to cross paths with a few people in 2009 and my first book was released and now it’s 2012, and I’ve written my first novel. I almost gave up writing the novel as well due to some personal issues going on in my life. Many of you didn’t know this, but if you were to read the acknowledgements in my novel, I mentioned when thanking the Lord that there was a point where I not only wanted to give up writing the novel, but living as a whole due to those personal issues. A dark cloud was over me during that time and I am so grateful that God sustained me through it all. If I had ended my life without finishing my novel, how would people’s lives be affected? Sure, God can use others to do something you should be doing, but the beauty of God is that He called us individually for a specific task. I said all of that to say this, if God has ordained you (which He has), He will sustain you through it all. Never let go of Him because He will always have His hand on you. And now that my novel is released, I’m so grateful to see lives rescued from the spirit of suicide.

In short, though I could type a lot more, just know that you can’t quit now because God will never quit on you! I better not forget this, you will face opposition like Joseph, Job, the apostles and many others recorded in Scripture, but you still can’t afford to quit now. Remember, quitters never win!