Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her.”
John 20:11-18 NKJV
“DO NOT, BUT GO”
Jesus uses these words so often in both the Bible and in my personal walk with Him every day. I was thinking a lot this morning about how big of an impact these four little words have had on me personally and in all those the Lord councils if they allow Him.
Jesus will always start with telling you the behaviors and the feelings you are investing in that are not productive and have no purpose. If we allow Him to finish without getting upset, He will then go on to tell us the correct course of action to allow us to walk into our purpose and into His promises over our lives.
The more I thought about it, I realized that this really is like coaching at it’s finest. When pursuing a new sport, although we may be passionate about playing the game, it doesn’t mean we know how to play well just yet. It takes hard work to be good at anything new and even though we won’ t be MVP right away, if we are coach-able and willing to learn, eventually we will get there, Just like any good coach, God will tell us “no” or “do not” for reasons we can’t see just yet in order to better our performance. . He is the one with the knowledge we need to properly navigate through our situations. We, unfortunately,would rather skip practice and get to winning already. We are not interested in being coached by anyone. Instead, we look around desperately for cheerleaders in order to feel validated and reassured of abilities we think we already have.
When we are over confident in the conclusions we have made about ourselves, others, or our circumstances, hearing God say “no” or “do not” causes us to immediately attribute His answer to our personal inability or inadequacy. God can’t even finish speaking the “but go” into our circumstances, because we stopped listening at “do not”.
Due to our feeling rejected or insecure when things don’t go our way; we end up shutting down and backing away from things that challenge us instead of sticking them out long enough to hear the rest of what God has to say about the purpose of those challenges. Things that are uncomfortable or uncertain are a struggle and all struggles involve a certain level of suffering in order to have a purpose.
We never lose our purpose, but we often lose the proper outlet for it. When we can’t recognize glory in certain times or even people we once felt confident in, we lose our passion to push through the uncertainty to avoid failure. When you have the passion to pursue what’s important to you, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes, including failing a million times until you get it right.
If God requires us to suffer for a season, we must know that there is a purpose and eventually that season’s gotta change. When God is involved we know that all things work together for our good and regardless of our present pain, we know that joy comes in the end. If we are willing to be changed and passionate about making a change in this world, we need to be unshakable in our faith. We need to be open to moving away from the current season of weeping and start walking into the next season of witnessing.
Suffering is certain in any situation, but God will not allow us to suffer unless there is a purpose. He tells us “do not” for a reason. It is never about what you can’t do, it is always about what you will do if we do it His way. The right way.
God will never leave you with a “no” or “do not”. There will always be a “but go” , just not always on our terms. Know that God is faithful no matter your present pain. We may not be where we thought we would be, but faith in His promises requires us to keep walking even while we are weeping. The suffering is just a season and if we trust in God, we know that eventually it’s gotta change. He may pause you, but He will never stop you. We cannot have passion without suffering.
Walk on warriors. His ways are not our ways. Because you have been broken because you have been hurt, you have been qualified to go to the next level.
Erica D.
My Message Ministries 