Kerry Shook - Made For More
Have you ever had that unsettling feeling that you were made for more; that you were made for more than how you're living right now, you were made for more than what you're experiencing right now? Maybe everything in your life is okay, but every once in a while you have that gnawing ache deep down in your soul that you have to be made for more than just trying to make it through another day. You feel like you're just kind of existing, but you're not really living the way you were made to live. Have you ever had that soul ache in your heart that you were made for more?
The first time I ever had that feeling that I was made for more was when I was 16 years old, just got my driver's license and the first car that I had to drive was my parents' old station wagon with the wood sideboard, and it was like I would drive that station wagon to school every day just thinking, "I was made for so much more. I was made for so much more than this. I wasn't made for this car, and this car wasn't made for me. I was made for maybe a Camaro, maybe a Firebird, maybe even a Porsche. I was made for something more than this". But my parents, unfortunately, disagreed because they felt that 16 years of age that station wagon was exactly what I was made for, and I proved them right one night when I was trying to drive through the drive-thru lane at Taco Bell and instead of going through the drive-thru lane I ran into Taco Bell.
I was just a few feet away from the drive-thru window and I didn't make the turn in that huge submarine and I just got stuck on the side of the building. And so everyone behind me in the line at Taco Bell was just so mad, honking their horns, cussing at me 'cause they couldn't get their cheesy gorditas in time and they were so frustrated, and there I was just stuck and I was going back and forth just grinding. I was totally stuck until a few people came out and helped push me off of Taco Bell. Now, for my parents that just proved to them that I was made for that station wagon and that station wagon was made for me.
Now, to me it just proved that station wagon wasn't made to go through the drive-thru lane at Taco Bell. That's all it proved. But I continued to drive that station wagon with the wood sideboard diadem for the rest of my sophomore and junior in high school until my senior year I was finally able to get the car I was made for. It was a 6-year-old red Mustang stick shift fully unloaded. I mean, it had nothing in it, but I loved it. Once I put my stereo in and had my music and I would drive that car this is the car I was made for, and I really believe that that car had something to do with Chris falling in love with me. So I look back with great memories on that car. She says it had nothing to do with it, but I just know it did. It gave me more confidence. I know.
Hey, I want you to open your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 43 because here we see God speaking to the Israelites telling them, "You're made for so much more than the way you're living right now. You're made for so much more than what you're experiencing right now". And the children of Israel were called by God. They were chosen by God. They were God's chosen people. God had led them into the Promised Land and God had given them a great call to be a light shining God's love to the whole world and yet they turned away from God and turned away from their true calling and so God allowed the Babylonians to come in and to destroy Jerusalem, to demolish the temple. And then they took back most of the Israelites to Babylon, which is modern-day Iraq, and took them into captivity for 70 years.
Now, that 70-year-period when the Israelites were in Babylon in captivity is known by historians as the Babylonian exile. So the Israelites were in exile at the time God speaks to them, and he tells them, "You were made for so much more". And so I want you to open your Bibles to Isaiah 43. And would you stand in honor of God's Word? And so I believe when God speaks this promise to the Israelites, "You were made for so much more than what you're experiencing and the way you're living," that he wants to speak to us today. He tells us, "You're made for so much more".
And what a beautiful and powerful promise. "This is what the LORD says. He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick. Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland". You can be seated. I want you to underline the phrase in this passage where God says, "I am doing a new thing". God tells the people of Israel, "Hey, you've been living in exile, but I'm getting ready to do something new and powerful and amazing in your lives. Yeah, I don't want you to look back at what's going on right now. I don't want you to look back at the past. I want you to look at the new thing that I'm getting ready to do".
Now, God was speaking these words while the people had been in exile for many years now. I mean, for many years they'd been so far away from the land they were made for and the plan that they were made for. I mean, they had moved so far away from the Promised Land, so far away from their calling and yet God was speaking these words to them. They'd been in exile for many years. It's coming toward the end of the 70 years, but they didn't know it was coming toward the end of the 70 years. And in captivity the conquering Babylonians had treated them okay. I mean, they didn't treat them great, but history tells us that they got to live in an Israelite settlement. Most of them lived fairly normal lives. The conditions weren't great. They were okay. I mean, it wasn't an amazing place to live because they were the ones who had been conquered, but they didn't get hassled too much.
I mean, everything was okay. It wasn't great, but it was okay. It wasn't the Promised Land, it was the land of okay. And I'm sure the Israelites had been living in the land of okay for so long that that sort of pushed Jerusalem and the temple and the Promised Land out of their minds, and they're thinking, "We're here. We're going to probably be here forever. We're here". And at first they thought about it a lot, but I'm sure it was sort of out of their minds and almost out of their hearts but every once in a while I'm sure they would feel that ache in their soul that they were made for more, that they were far away from the land they were made for and the plan that they were made for.
And the people were in this land of okay and they became okay with okay. God wanted them to always be looking towards Jerusalem and thinking about what he was going to do and that this time would turn their hearts; but they'd become okay with just okay, and some of you today have become okay with okay. You're just okay right now with God doing a little bit in your life but not a whole lot. You're just okay and you're a little afraid to step out of the comfort zone of okay to move into the land you were made for because of the risk, because of the unknown. And the Israelites were right there.
And so God had to speak to them in this place because they'd become okay with the land of okay and God had to prepare them for more, and the reason why God speaks to them in this passage and gives them this amazing promise is he's preparing them for more because you can't step in the more until you're prepared for more. You have to have the faith. God has to build your faith to take that step. Because when all you're seeing is your circumstances and you got your head down and you're walking around with your head down and you're not really looking for what God is doing, God has to wake you up and give you a wake-up call and say, "Hey, get your head up. Look up. I'm getting ready to do something new and amazing in your life".
And so that's what I want God to do in your life today, to give you a wake-up call. If you've been walking around with your head down because you're just trying to survive and make it through another day and everything is so difficult and you're just trying to get through and it's really hard for you to see what God is up to because you're just trying to survive, I want you to lift your head up because God has a word for you today through his Word.
So what did he tell the Israelites? Because it's the same thing that we need to do to really be prepared to move out of the land of okay into the land we're made for. First, remember God's power. He tells them remember God's power. Hey, I've read this passage many times because this is one of my favorite promises in the Bible. Forget the former things. Don't dwell on the past. I love that. God's used that in my life so many times. God was telling the Israelites, "I want you to forget all this exile stuff. I want you to forget Babylon. Forget the past. Don't dwell on the past. One time I told you you need to build houses and dwell, but now it's time. Stop dwelling in your minds, in your hearts, and soon in your houses in Babylon because I'm getting ready to do a new thing".
God was getting ready to rescue them from the Babylonians, to defeat the Babylonians and to bring them back to the Promised Land and to rebuild the temple. He was about to bring them back to the land they were made for and the plan that they were made for, to be a light to shine God's love to the world. But God had to prepare their hearts 'cause they'd been dwelling in the land and he had to get them out of that dwelling mentality into that stepping-out-in-faith mentality. And so God tells them, "You got to forget the former things. Don't dwell on the past". And I love that passage because that speaks to me all the time when I read it. It's like, "Kerry, forget about all your past mistakes and all your mess, all your sins. Forget about the past. I'm getting ready to do something new in your life right now".
It's so powerful. I love that. And so I've gone back to that passage so many times in my life. I've gone back to that promise of God in my life so many times, but what I had never seen until recently when I was studying this passage is right before God says forget the past he tells the Israelites remember the past. I never knew that. It's so interesting. Right before God says, "I want you to forget the past because I'm doing something new," he tells them, "I want you to remember a miracle from your past". Look at it with me. We'll just kind of go through this passage again. Verse 16 and 17, "This is what the LORD says. He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick".
And so here God reminds the Israelites of the miracle of how he rescued them from the Egyptians through the Red Sea, one of the greatest miracles in Israelites' history. And so God's getting ready to rescue them from the land of okay and bring them into the land of more, but before he can rescue them he has to remind them of his power. Before they can forget the past they have to remember God's power, and that's the first thing that can wake you up to what God is about to do in your life so you don't miss it. See, this whole passage is about how not to miss what God is getting ready to do in your life. And so he says, "Before you can forget the past, you got to remember my power. You got to focus on me". And it's the same for us.
So what are we to remember about God's power? Remember God can do the impossible. God can do the impossible. In verse 16 from the Message paraphrase it says, "This is what God says, the God who builds a road right through the ocean". You remember the miracle of the Red Sea, how God had led the Israelites out of Egypt? They'd been in slavery over 400 years and God delivers them through Moses the great leader and so they leave Egypt. They go into the wilderness, and they come to the Red Sea right away and they camp at the Red Sea. The Egyptians change their mind and they send a whole army after the Israelites to kill them.
And so here the Israelites are, the Red Sea in front of them, the Egyptian army bearing down behind them. They're trapped. They're at a dead end. They're in an impossible situation. It was humanly impossible. It was over and then God builds a road through the ocean. He does the impossible, and he delivers them. God says, "I want you to remember that I'm the God of the impossible". God can get us out of Babylon and get us back to the land that we were made for, and some of you are facing an impossible situation right now. It's okay to admit it's humanly impossible. You know, you're facing a situation that you've tried to fix, you try to change and it's unchangeable, it's uncontrollable and you can't fix it, you can't change it. It's humanly impossible, but God is the God of the impossible.
There's no such thing as a lost cause. Don't give up hope because you've got a God of the impossible. He was basically saying, "Remember how great and big and powerful I am and how much I love you, and I'm going to rescue you again. I've got something new and powerful for you". Then he tells them move to the next step. That is remember God's power, then deal with the past so you don't dwell on the past. The second, deal with the past so you don't dwell on the past. In verse 18 he says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past".
Now, usually we can't forget the past because we haven't dealt with the past and the past keeps coming up in the present affecting everything we do and really hurting all our relationships. And so how do you deal with the past? Well, you grieve your losses. First thing you do is you grieve your losses. Brokenness leads to blessedness, but you got to feel the pain of the brokenness and the loss. You know, the things that you've done in your past that have created a loss, they lost 70 years, and they had to grieve that loss. They had to admit that loss. They dealt with that loss. They cried. They wept, it says, by the rivers in Babylon.
And too many times when we experience a loss, a loss that we cause by our sins or a loss that we had nothing to do with that was just a tragedy that came into our life, many times we don't grieve it. We just keep moving on. And when you don't grieve your losses, that grief will come out sideways in a very destructive way. A lot of times it's a midlife crisis. That grief will come out in some way that will be so destructive. God created us to grieve our losses. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted". It's not blessed are those who plow through; blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who grieve. We have to come to the place of brokenness and feel the pain of our brokenness so we can move into blessedness.
And so you grieve your losses. Sometimes God has to break you before he can make you. Sometimes God has to break you and you got to feel the pain of that brokenness before he can begin making you into what you were made for. And then admit your failures. God knows them anyway. So we just have to be honest about our sins and mistakes and truthful and admit them to God, admit them to others and experience God's forgiveness and then healing. We've got to admit our failures or we'll be stuck in the past. And then forget your successes.
The greatest enemy for growth in any organization or business is past success because you say, "Well, we've always done it this way and it's been okay". So you got to forget your successes. Don't matter anymore. So you can make the changes you need to make to be ready for the new thing God is doing in your life. Now, the crazy thing is God uses all these things from your past, your losses, your pain, your successes, your hurts, your failures, your sins; he uses all of it to make you into what you're made for. He's making you in what he's made you to be. But there's a third thing. Open your eyes to the new thing God is doing.
That's so important. You got to open your spiritual eyes. He's doing it now. It's happening in your life. You just don't see it. May be kind of small right now, but you got to open your spiritual eyes to see it. You can't walk around with your eyes looking down. You got to look up, he says. And you can't look back, you got to look up. In verse 19a, God says, "See, I am doing a new thing". Stop focusing on the past. God's getting ready to do something new and powerful and amazing in your life. You say, "Well, it hasn't happened for a while". It doesn't matter. God's getting ready to do something new and powerful, but you miss it when you don't open your spiritual eyes.
You got to see beyond your circumstances and see that God is up to something. God is up to something huge. It may be underground right now. I remember when we built this building. You know, the foundation of the building took forever, and then after that things went up really fast. But it was like, I'd come out here every day and go, "Man, they're doing nothing". You can't see anything. They're working on the foundation, building deep piers in the ground because why? They were getting ready to build something big. And whenever God is getting ready to build something big in your life, he has to prepare you for it and he has to sometimes prune you to prepare you.
Sometimes you have to experience pain. But he's digging down deep and he's building the foundation strong 'cause he's not building a little hut, he's building his big plan for your life. In verse 19b, the second part says, "Now it springs up; do you not perceive it"? Underline the word now. Don't look for it in yesterday. Don't look for it in tomorrow. Look for it now, now. You see, it's today. Today's the only day you know you have. God's given us this great gift of one day, one day. That's what you know you have, this day. What are you going to do with that gift? How are you going to unwrap it? Because I'm telling you what God is doing in your life, he's going to do it now.
Don't look back at the past. Don't look at someday. That's where we get stuck, in that someday when things settle down. Things aren't ever going to settle down. This is life. I said it this week. "Someday, you know, when things settle down, you know, right now it's a little busy". You ever said that? "Someday", you just lying to yourself, and I'm here to tell you as your pastor you are a liar. You're lying to yourself. "Someday when things settle down, it's not so stressful, when we get through this problem, I'm going to really take steps of faith to be who God called me to be. I'm going to really get more involved in the church. We're going to join the church. I'm going to start giving. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to spend more time with the kids. I'm going to focus in on the family. I'm going to do what I've always longed to do. I'm going to follow that dream that God's placed into my heart when things settle down".
No, you just lied to yourself. Don't believe it. When you lie to yourself, don't believe yourself. Okay? Things are never going to set, I'm here to tell you the harsh truth. Things will never settle down. This is life. As long as you have a pulse, you're going to have problems. This is life. You got to enjoy every day, live every day. Step out today. It's not about tomorrow. It's not about yesterday. It's about what are you going to do today. Take a step of faith to get ready for the more God's going to give you now, and then open your eyes to see what God's doing. Open your eyes. And that's my greatest prayer for you today, is that God would open all of our spiritual eyes so that we can see what he's doing in our lives, what he's getting ready to do. May be small right now, but it's going to spring up. For our church, for your family, for your life, that we would open our spiritual eyes so that we could see.
And then he tells us what he's going to be doing. In the last verse he says, "I'm making way in the wilderness and springs in the wasteland". So what wilderness are you in? What desert are you in right now? Maybe you're in a wilderness in your career, and God says, "I can make a way to get you to the place that you're made for, to get you to the career you are made for". Maybe you're in a wilderness or a desert in your marriage right now and it just seems like all the love has just dried up and it's just a desert. God can create springs in the desert and renew your marriage. Maybe you're in a wilderness of worry right now where the worried thoughts, the anxiety just taken over. God can flood you with his peace and wash away all those worries.
Maybe you're in a desert of depression and you feel like you'll never get out. God wants to give you the springs of joy that come from within your heart that can't be explained by anything else. God can make a way where there seems to be no way. So if you're at a place of dead end right now, I want to say to you you're blessed because God does his greatest miracles at the place of dead end. God does his greatest miracles at the place of dead end. So many times God has taken me through the stage of it's okay, then it gets difficult, then there are delays and waiting, and then you hit a dead end so that you don't settle for okay.
But dead end is really just the stage right before deliverance. It's the stage you got to get to so you turn to him instead of trying to do it on your own. And some of you are right there right now, but you're still struggling. You're still holding on. You're still trying to do it yourself, and it's time for you to give up and let God take over. I love where he says in this passage, "Do you not perceive it? Do you not perceive it"? Do you not perceive that God brought you here today because he planted before the foundations of the earth so that he could meet here with you to tell you, "I've got more for you. I've got more for you. It's not over".