I’ve Had it up to Here!

I’ve had it up to here!

You may have heard this phrase before. It usually comes with a gesture, where the hand is raised level with the persons chin and moves up over their head!

It’s a phrase I used yesterday in response to our situation, and again later in response to a gesture from my beloved father.

There was a growing level of frustration with our circumstance and regular and persistent failure by clients to honour their financial commitments and pay on time. I have a simple expectation really in business, our responsibility is to provide quality products and services, theirs is to pay on time when due.

This has been a year of extended delays, one client paying us 6 months late!

You would have seen from my last post, God does something really special with delays. When a women says in a particular context “I’m late”, those words have life changing impact. When God delays things, or shows up late, miracles happen! Yet it is hard not to “freak out” or be emotionally impacted when there is a delay. This week especially I can relate to this scene…

John 11:32-36 When Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she dropped down at His feet, saying to Him, Lord, if You had been here, my brother[Lazarus] would not have died. When Jesus saw her sobbing, and the Jews who came with her [also] sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. [He chafed in spirit and sighed and was disturbed.] And He said, Where have you laid him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. The Jews said, See how [tenderly] He loved him!

Given the natural circumstances (death of her Brother and a friend of Jesus), being upset or frustrated or emotional was understandable! In fact, I would have been more like Mary’s sister Martha, who said earlier…

John 11:21 Martha then said to Jesus, Master, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

For me the point would have been “if you had been here, the money would have been in the bank!”

Of course we know how the story ends, and over the past few decades in church, I’m used to hearing the testimony after the test. It’s like, let’s wait for God to prove himself and then we will tell of His faithfulness. It’s easy to talk of the test after it has been passed, but very few will talk of the test whilst they are sitting it. We love to talk about faith, let’s take “the leap of faith” is a secular phrase you often here, and yet in my experience few Christians take the leap and expose their challenges and hopes to those around them. Our recent church small group is a notable exception. Are we hoping in the God of all hope, or waiting for the circumstance to change before we share the good news?

Some of the most mind bending, life changing events this year, have happened when we have announced “I’m late” to our friends. We have faith because our God is much more powerful than Superman, but is most profoundly a God who loves us and is “FAITH-ful”. We have faith because He is full of Faithfulness. He can be trusted. If we can truly get that revelation we can be like Paul and Silas, worshipping the greatness and faithfulness of God from the prison cell. Their proclamation of His goodness, attracted His faithfulness and brought forth the literal breakthrough – an earthquake that broke the chains and brought release.

It was interesting yesterday when my father raised his hand level under his chin. My natural reaction was to agree I have had it up to here, but what came out of my mouth and echoed in his was “as leaders we must cross over like Joshua, like Moses, step into the raging sea and expect for God to move and part the waters.”

I remember a great sermon I heard on this recently and a picture God gave me. Joshua and the leaders, walked in to the raging Jordan carrying the Ark, and kept walking in until the water reached their heads. At that point they had a choice to make: trust in the faithfulness of God and walk forward into the deep, with no turning back, or refuse to move forward. It was only when the water was over their head that God parted it and made a change to their circumstance. Read Isaiah 43 for the full story…

Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned or scorched, nor will the flame kindle upon you.

This is the promise of the Lord.

So this past few months we have continued to walk forward, despite the circumstance, and God has continued to part the waters and give us rite of passage. Just today we received payment in advance from our clients, more than we expected.

Let me encourage you today to move forward, take the leap of faith, and look out for the faithfulness of God to show up in unexpected and miraculous ways!