Ramming Roadblocks

“God must not have wanted it to happen this week, because He allowed one obstacle after another to get in the way.”

I used to be the Director of Drama Ministries at a mega-church. Only in church ministry are volunteers and employees allowed to use the above-mentioned excuse to not get their work done!

After all, who are we to second-guess what God’s plan for the week is? What kind of a Christian would we be if we forced our agenda when God clearly had something else in mind? Please! I can see God rolling His eyes and saying, “don’t blame your laziness on me!”

One of the women I worked with used the “God…obstacles” excuse all the time. Our job was to come up with creative elements for the Sunday morning services—like dramas and videos.

The pastor would provide us with a month’s worth of sermon topics. Then the worship pastor would choose songs that supported the message. Finally, our team would look for short drama sketches that added another funny, thoughtful, or poignant layer to the whole Sunday morning picture. Often, we’d write our own scripts.

I loved our team of talented actors, writers, directors, and tech crew. Most of them poured their gifts and heart into creating God-inspired, high quality art.

My personal code of ethics drives me to follow through on my commitments and promises. As a believer, I’m inclined to believe that the more obstacles mark my path, the more Satan wants to put the kibosh on the project…which makes me pray up and work that much harder to get it done.

But, how do you know for sure that God isn’t the one slowing the project down? How do we rightly distinguish between God closing a door, and a simple Satan snag?

I believe we ought to keep plowing forward. We need to use prayer and old-fashioned stick-to-itiveness to break barriers, ram roadblocks, and hack hurdles. I’d rather know that I was faithful to what God called me to do then to be guilty of blaming Him for my slothfulness. If I don’t do what He’s asked of me, He’ll call someone else.

So, get off the pew of laziness and run the race all the way to the finish line. Let’s commit to stop using God as an excuse for putting our selfish pursuits ahead of Him. Get off the pew!