“Lord, don’t let my life be for nothing.”

I’d prayed that many times. Yet for years I passed from crisis to crisis without an end in sight. It was like trying to pass over a huge rapids by jumping from rock to rock. All the rocks were spaced at irregular intervals. Some were near and some were far; some were smooth and some rather sharp. At times I fell with a splash, barely grabbing hold in time to free myself from the strong current. Other times I landed square on, but the price for aiming straight was a jagged cut. That is how it felt, at least.

Each momentary relief brought a hope that things would go more smoothly after that. God was preparing me for some purpose that lay just around the corner. Once I finished the “preparation” it would become more clear and things would surely even out afterwards. But they didn’t.

I had misunderstood “preparation” because I was taught to misunderstand it. Isn’t it always the way that someone sees your troubles and says, “God is preparing you for some great thing”?  If truth be told, God is not preparing you for some “great thing” of your own, no matter what noble disguise it wears.  He is preparing you for His own “great thing” that He is doing in the earth. He is getting the kinks out of you so that you can be made into a fit dwelling place for Him. Each time you gain victory in a trial, you prepare His way to shine out of His people.

My late uncle was fond of telling the story of how the boy David was prepared by God to meet his Goliath. The shepherd boy who had lived in obscurity confidently told Saul that he was ready to slay Goliath the same way he had already slain a lion and a bear that tried to take a lamb from his flock. Then he did slay Goliath. End of story. Except that it’s not.

You see, David was prepared for the killing of Goliath and it was a turning point in his life and it did get recorded as a turning point in Israel’s history. But Goliath alone was not the point. He was a means to an end — the vanquishing of the Philistine threat to the Israelites. David did not suddenly become a king, though. In fact, he had many, many trials the rest of his life — some that were circumstantial and some that he created for himself. But the point was to establish a ground and a way for the Messianic kingdom. (Acts 2:29-30)

The battle with Goliath was part of a larger war on earth between two spiritual kingdoms. Like David, we live out a series of challenges all our lives that make us wonder — even if we do become kings like he did — what good is kingship if we are still suffering such trials of mind and body? For David, kingship was not an end, but a beginning of new and bigger trials, betrayals, humiliations that lasted until the end of his life. He wrote some of his most desperate psalms as a king.

Can you not see that the point of these perils is not to train us to do some “great thing” and then die as legends? No — but the purpose is contained in the crisis itself! David’s trials, even under the physical covenant, resulted in a deepening repentance and faith — in preparation to receive the Lord within when the time should permit. (1 Peter 3:19)  For not until Christ died and rose again could the spirit of the Lord be received into human beings! (Acts 2:38)

This is the moment of overcoming, which we so foolishly cast aside as of lesser importance than the “great thing” that will happen after we pass some series of tests and become an expert in some field of ministry. The place of crisis is the place of choosing God. The choosing is where idols of the heart are toppled and devils lose their claim in us! To choose God is to sweep the inner rooms of the heart clean.

The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the innermost parts of his being. (Pro. 20:27 NASB)

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. (Joel 3:14)

Each choice of crisis lends us greater confidence for the next hard choice and the next and the next, so that we stand upon all that has gone before. A choice of obedience in behavior becomes a choice of obedience in the heart as the final tasks become too great for human compliance. Once we let go of the last hope in performing for God, the act of choosing Him in an impossible circumstance sweeps away the last vestiges of trust in our human abilities. The way of the Lord is prepared that He would come and dwell more fully in us.

When at last we realize the work of the Spirit in our hearts and lives, no perceived failure can rob our lives of significance. Instead, we prove the words of Jesus to ourselves:

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 NASB)

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