Joel Osteen - God Wastes Nothing
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I want to talk to you today about about how God Wastes Nothing. We all go through things that we don't understand, things that are not fair, dealing with an illness, had a rough childhood, a relationship didn't work out. There are seasons we're not making progress, no good breaks, everything is routine. Sometimes we make mistakes and bring heartache and trouble on ourselves. It's easy to get discouraged and lose our passion for life, but the beauty of our God is he doesn't waste anything that we go through. He doesn't waste the pain, he doesn't waste the struggle, he doesn't waste the failures. You may have blown it and done things you regret, but God knows how to bring good out of it. He wouldn't have allowed it if it was going to keep you from your purpose. Everything that you've been through is preparing you for where God is taking you.
May not be comfortable, may not be fair, but God is going to use it to position you for the assignment that he's placed on your life. Now, thoughts will whisper, "It's too late. Didn't work out, you had your chance, just accept it". No, God is not finished with you. The struggle wasn't a waste, it's making you stronger. The delay is not a waste, it's positioning you for greater things. The betrayal, the breakup, the loss, yes it was painful, but it wasn't wasted. You gained experience, wisdom, insight. The miracle is not in what you lost, the miracle is in what you have left. The depth of your pain is an indication of the height of your future. When you've been through a great disappointment, great heartache, great struggle, that tells me you have a great future.
The enemy meant it for harm, but God knows how to turn it to your advantage. You're not going come out the same, you're going to come out stronger, with more faith, more courage, greater character, greater passion. But if you don't understand that God doesn't waste anything, it's tempting to get bitter, live discouraged, "Joel, they ruined my life, they walked out on me. I didn't have a good childhood. I came down with this illness. I lost a loved one, broke my heart". You can't control all that, life is going to happen, this is when you have to remind yourself that God is in control, and he wouldn't have allowed it if he didn't have a purpose for it.
Nothing in your life is going to be wasted. I can't promise you there won't be seasons of struggle, seasons that are not fair, but I can promise you: if you'll keep the right attitude, you'll come out better. We don't grow so much in the good times, we grow in the difficult times. Where we're being stretched and pressed, and we have to dig down deep and pass the test. That's where God is getting us prepared for our destiny. Without that adversity we couldn't step into the fullness of what he has in store.
John chapter 6, Jesus prayed over a little boy's lunch. Five loaves of bread and two fish, and God multiplied the food and fed some 15,000 people, a great miracle. After they had all eaten, Jesus said to the disciples "Gather up the fragments so that nothing will be wasted". Why would Jesus be concerned about the fragments, the leftovers? He's God, he just multiplied the food. If he wanted more, he could make more fresh and new, not this leftover stuff. No, he was showing us this principle that "I am a God that doesn't waste anything".
The fragments represent the broken pieces of our lives, what's left over, what's not useful, seems unnecessary. That relationship that didn't work out, contract that didn't go through, the child that got off course. We feel broken, hurting, discouraged. God says to the angels, "Gather up those fragments". He's not going to waste anything you've been through, he's going to turn that pain into power, he's going to take that struggle and turn it into strength, where you get stronger and you grow through it. He'll take that loss where you feel discouraged and alone, and cause you to blossom, bring beauty out of the ashes, joy out of the mourning, victory out of the defeat.
You may have things in your life that feel like leftovers, you'd rather forget about it, the mistake you made, how someone treated you, the business that didn't work out, that's painful, there were lonely nights, you think "Man, leave those fragments, leave that broken piece, leave that struggling season". No, God says, "I'm not going to let you go through that and come out the same. Gather up those fragments". It looks unnecessary, not useful, but God can make miracles out of a mistake. He can take broken pieces and bring beauty. He can take that pain and use it to propel you into your purpose.
I can imagine the disciples picking up the fragments, old pieces of bread and parts of the fish, and here's the tail, it's messy and stinky. They're thinking, "What does Jesus want with all these scraps? Doesn't he know these are the leftovers, the broken pieces, things that nobody wants"? That's the way our God is: things we go through that seem like there's no good in it, "No good in this sickness, Joel. No good in the loss of my loved one. No good in this storm form that damaged my house". Our God specializes in the fragments, in taking the scraps and bringing good out of it. You may be in a season that's unfair today, it's uncomfortable, it's lonely, you're not making any progress. You can't see it right now, but it's doing something in you: you're getting stronger, you're growing, developing greater faith, trust and endurance. It's getting you prepared for where God is taking you.
Now, do the right thing when it's hard. Forgive when they don't deserve it. Smile when you could be sour. Praise when you could complain. That's passing the test. You're going to see the hand of God take the fragments of your life and do more than you can imagine. He'll take the broken pieces and make something beautiful. He doesn't waste anything. The pain is real, but it's not going to be wasted. The struggle is difficult, but there's good coming out of it. The betrayal, the loss, the sickness, that's difficult, but that's not how your story ends. God is gathering up the fragments right now, healing is coming, breakthroughs are coming, new beginnings, the right people, victory is coming.
Moses was born into a difficult environment. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. The Pharaoh was concerned that they were getting too big and too powerful, so he ordered all the Hebrew baby boys under the age of two to be killed. But what God has purposed for your life cannot be stopped by people, by bad breaks, by disappointments. God has the final say. Moses mother knew that Moses was no ordinary child, they knew something special was about him, his name means deliverer, called out one. For 3 months she hid baby Moses, but when he got too big, she put him in a basket and sent him down the Nile River. There were snakes, alligators, all kinds of danger, but when you commit your children into God's hands, he knows how to protect them, how to keep them from evil and harm and from the wrong people.
It just so happened, Pharaoh's daughter was out taking a bath at the river. She heard the crying coming from the basket. When she saw baby Moses, it was love at first sight. She said to her assistant, "This must be one of the Hebrew babies". Well, her father was the one that said they all had to be killed, but she took him back to the palace to raise as her own son. Moses grew up in royalty. He had the finest education of that day. The Egyptians were leaders in science and technology, we still marvel at the huge pyramids they built, the engineering, the design without any of our modern-day equipment. Living in the palace, Moses learned leadership and protocol, how to handle himself with people of influence, all about authority, business, government.
It was an amazing upbringing. What made it even more unusual was he was was a Hebrew living in an Egyptian world. No other Hebrew had ever been where he was and experienced life in the palace, how their system functioned. But as Moses grew into a young man, great as it was to have the influence, great as it was to be in the palace, he didn't feel right. He was welcomed as an Egyptian, but he knew he didn't belong there. He was a Hebrew. He could feel God's calling on his life. Deep down he knew he was supposed to deliver his people from the oppression of the Egyptians. One day he saw an Egyptian foreman mistreating a Hebrew slave. He didn't think anyone was watching, so he killed that foreman. Word got out about what had happened, Moses had to flee for his life. He headed out into the desert like a fugitive on the run.
Moses had no training to be out in the wilderness, he had no survival skills, he grew up in the palace. He never had to find food, food was brought to him. He didn't have to worry about shelter, where to sleep, he lived in a private bedroom with maids to keep it clean, a butler on call for whatever he wanted. But now in the desert he had to learn what plants he could eat, what wasn't poisonous, what fruit was okay, where he could find water, how to build a shelter, the best place to hide from a storm. He lived in the desert for 40 years, he became an expert at surviving in the wilderness. He knew to how to handle the terrain, the climate, the different seasons, where to camp, when to move.
I'm sure out there in the desert many times he thought, "Man, I missed my calling. God's hand was on my life. I was supposed to deliver my people, but I blew it, and now I'm stuck out here". The scripture says, "God's calling on your life is irrevocable". God doesn't change his mind. We may make mistakes, we get off course, people do us wrong, but every step of the way you are learning something you're going to need for your destiny. It looks random like it's just another delay, another wrong turn, another bad break, but your steps are being ordered, God is preparing you and he is positioning you. You may not be able to see it, doesn't make sense, but God can see the big picture. He wouldn't have allowed it if it wasn't going to move you toward your purpose.
None of us like these wilderness seasons, the struggles, "Didn't have a good childhood, Joel, I got sent down the nile so to speak", or "I made mistakes and I'm not where I thought I would be". It's easy to live guilty, down on ourselves, but God's not going to waste it. Right when Moses thought he was finished, he looked over and saw a bush catch fire, but it wouldn't burn up. He heard a voice boom out, "Moses, take off your shoes, you are standing on holy ground". That's when God told him, "Now is time to deliver my people. Go tell the Pharaoh to let them go". After 40 years God showed up, said in effect, "Moses, everything you've been through has been necessary. It hasn't stopped you, it has prepared you for what I've called you to do."
You are not defined by your past, you are prepared by your past. God wastes nothing. If he allowed it, there's a purpose. He's not going to waste your pain, what wasn't fair. He's not going to waste the scars, what someone did to you. He's not going to waste your mistakes. If you'll repent, ask for forgiveness, then there's a lesson in it, an area that you can grow to get positioned for something greater. Don't sit around guilty, down on yourself. Don't live bitter over what hasn't worked out, your burning bush is coming. The same God that came to Moses after 40 years and said, "Now is the time" has not forgotten about you.
Your time is coming. What God has purposed for your life is still on schedule. The dreams he's placed in your heart, they may have taken longer than you thought, there may have been some detours, some obstacles, but it was all a part of his plan. He's gathering up the fragments, he's putting the broken pieces back together, it's still going to happen.
Imagine if God told you to go speak to the president of a foreign country, a big superpower and tell them something that they're not going to like. We'd think, "I don't know how to do that. I've never been in that kind of environment", so foreign to us, so unfamiliar, we don't even know where to start. But when God told Moses to go speak to the Pharaoh, the most powerful leader of that day, Moses had lived in the palace, he grew up there. He had seen important meetings, leaders come in, protocol, how it all worked. It wasn't far out, it was familiar to him. As a baby, floating down the Nile River, trying to to escape the Pharaoh's decree, look like that's just a bad break, born at the wrong time, not able to have a normal childhood, but God doesn't waste anything.
Being raised in the palace was preparing him for what he would need to do some 80 years later. He couldn't see it at the time, he thought, "I'm living as an Egyptian, this is not who I am, I'm a Hebrew". The scripture (Hebrews 11:24-25) says, "He refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but instead chose to be mistreated with the people of God". We can look back in our lives and see things that don't seem fair, we don't understand, "Why did they leave me out? Why was I born in dysfunction? Why did I lose my loved one? Why did that school turn me down"? I can't tell you why, but I can tell you that God would not have allowed it if it was not going to deposit something in you, to get you prepared and in position for what he has coming.
God doesn't waste anything. I've always said that God has a plan A for your life, a plan B, a plan C, a plan D, that'll get you to where you're supposed to be, but I think a better way to say it is God only has a plan A, but he has a plan A1, A2, A3, A4, A5. He called Moses to deliver his people, that plan never changed. God didn't say, "This man has had too many bad breaks, Pharaoh tried to kill him as a child, his mother had to abandon him, he was raised by people we didn't feel comfortable", God in a hurry had to take a big detour. That wasn't a surprise to God. Every step of the way Moses was learning what he would need to fulfill his purpose.
After a series of events Pharaoh finally decided to let the Israelites go, they were delivered from 430 years of slavery, a day they had always dreamed of. Moses led them out toward the Promised Land, but to get to that land they had to travel through the desert. Well, they were former slaves, they didn't know how to survive in the wilderness, they didn't know what to eat, where to find water, how to build shelter, what to watch out for. But it just so happened that their leader Moses had spent 40 years in the desert. He was an expert at survival in the wilderness. He was skilled on all the terrain, logistics, how to maneuver through the land.
All those years out there I'm sure he thought, "This is a waste. If I hadn't made that mistake I could be doing something so much more significant", but God doesn't waste anything you go through. God was getting him prepared for what he would need in the future. We're not going to understand it all in real time, it's not going to make sense: this delay, the bad brake, the people that lied about me, this obstacle that's not changing. That's when you have to trust, "God, I know you're in control. I know you don't waste anything, so I'm going to stay in peace, I'm going to do the right thing, knowing that it's all working for my good". When you do that, you're growing, you're getting stronger. Those difficulties in your past, like with Moses, they're not going to define you, they are preparing you. You're going to come into seasons where you look back and think, "That's what God was doing. That's why the door closed, that's why the contract fell through, that's why they walked away". God didn't send the storm, but he used the storm.
Few years after Victoria and I were married, we received an unexpected tax bill in the mail. The man who filed our taxes each year lived in another state, he wasn't familiar with a certain law in Texas, and now we owed thousands of dollars in back taxes and penalties. We were a young couple, saving up for a down payment for our house, and we were so disappointed. We thought, "Man, we hired a professional, wasn't our fault, now we're having to pay for his mistake". We got in contact with this tax attorney, very skilled and experienced man, and he looked at all our documents and studied the paperwork, and he told us that it could be corrected, we just needed to refile the returns and clarify some things, and we'd be fine.
So for several weeks he came over to our house at night to work on it. We'd take a break and go up and get something to eat, or run up to the post office to mail something. We spent all this time together, and we ended up becoming close friends and continued to stay in touch. Well, 10 years later I was working in the television department here at Lakewood, and daddy was still the pastor, someone contacted me saying "They had a construction permit for the last full power commercial television station here in Houston", and wanted me to be a part of it. I was excited, but I didn't know what to do. Then I thought, "I'll call my attorney friend, the one I met during the tax problem". He went to work, 6 months later we had a signed contract.
We put the station on the air and ran it for a couple of years, and then my father went to be with the Lord and I became the pastor. We acquired the Compaq Center, we discovered it was going to cost hundred million dollar to renovate this place. We decided to sell the station. We sold it for a huge profit, more than any of the experts said we'd ever get. We use those funds to help renovate our new facility. But it all started with that tax problem. I couldn't see it at the time, I didn't like it, it was unfair, but God doesn't waste anything you go through. Had I not had that problem, I wouldn't have met that attorney. Without that attorney I probably wouldn't have pursued the station. Without the station we wouldn't have had the funds for this place.
You may not understand all that comes your way in life, but you can be certain: God is not going to waste it. What looks like a setback, many times is a setup for what God is about to do. It's preparing you and positioning you for something greater. Stay in faith, God knows what you're going to need and he knows who you're going to need. It may not happen the way you think, Moses didn't like fleeing into the desert, but that was a necessary season in his life, where he learned things that he needed for his future. He didn't like being sent down the Nile River, not growing up in his own home, but what he learned in the palace was critical to fulfill his purpose. That's how he had the courage to speak to the Pharaoh.
On the way to your destiny there will be these seasons you don't understand. You have to trust that God is not going to waste the pain, he's not going to waste the struggle, he's not going to waste the mistakes, those regrets, things if you could you would do over, you would make better choices. The good news is: God specializes in gathering up the fragments. He doesn't discard the broken pieces, he knows how to put things back together, how to bring beauty out of the ashes, how to take a mess and turn it into a miracle.
I have some pastor friends that live in another state. A few years ago the wife and nine-year-old son were involved in a tragic car accident. His wife broke her neck, her back and shattered most of the bones in her face. Unfortunately, the son didn't survive, he lost his life. They were heartbroken, never dreamed they would be dealing with so much pain and grief. By the grace of God his wife fully recovered, and today she's healthy and beautiful, and they're leading a successful church. A while back they were invited to come and speak at this church conference. They shared the story of how they had gone through the accident and how God had helped them to make it through. At the end they invited people to come down to the front to receive Christ.
The young man came down with tears running down his face, he said to the pastor and his wife, "I have your son's kidneys". They were taking back, pastor said, "What do you mean? How do you know?" he said, "You sent letters to all the people that received organs from your son, telling who you are and what you do. You invited us to reach out if we wanted, but I never did". This young man had lived a life of drugs and gains, he was very sick and close to death. One night lying on the bathroom floor, not able to get up, he prayed, "God, if you'll help me, I'll give my life to you". At that moment the phone rang, he crawled on the floor to answer it. It was the hospital telling him they had found a kidney for him. He had this successful transplant.
Several months had passed, and he'd still never made good on that promise. His sister invited him to come to church that night, but at first he said "No". Then he felt something so strong, compelling him to go. They had no idea who the speaker was, but that night he walked down the aisle and gave his life to Christ. He took the wife's hand and put it on his side and said, "You can feel your son, he's still giving me life". It was not only a new beginning for him, but it was healing for my friends, a sense of wholeness and fulfillment. God bringing beauty out of the ashes.
No matter what you go through, God is not going to waste it. He's a God who gathers up the fragments, he's going to take those broken pieces, the leftovers, what seems useless to us, and still make something amazing out of it. You may be in a difficult place now, God has not forgotten about you. Where you are is not where you're going to end up, your burning bush is coming. Now, trust him in the wilderness seasons. Do the right thing when you don't understand. God wouldn't have the difficulty if he wasn't going to bring some kind of good out of it. If you'll just keep moving forward in faith, knowing that God is in control, I believe and declare: he's going to turn your pain into power, that struggle into strength, that mistake into a miracle. Like Moses, you're going to still fulfill your assignment, go into your Promised Land and become all you were created to be, in Jesus name. And if you receive it, can you say amen?