Best

 When God plants you in a particular place, it is the best place for you. Although you may not see it at the time, although it may not feel like the best place at the moment, God does not err. He does not fumble the bag, as the kids like to say, nor does He make mistakes.

When God assigns you a task or places a calling on your life, it is the task or calling you are best suited for. It is something no one else can do as efficiently or with the same skill because the One who created you is well aware of the gifts with which you are endowed.

God isn’t going in blind or making decisions based on someone else’s recommendations. He’s not beholden to the notion of diversity hires or having a certain percentage of females, males, handicapable people, vegans, pescatarians, or carnivores. When He assigns someone a task, it is with the full knowledge of who they are, what they can do, and what He can do through them.

However monumental the endeavor, if the individual tasked with carrying it out would only trust and obey, they would see the conclusion because God finishes what He starts. The weakest link in the process is man. More specifically, the heart of man with all its divided loyalties, propensity for avarice, and pride of life. If a man can keep humility as his constant companion and give glory to God for all He does through him, there is no limit to what God can do.

As with most everything else, trusting and obeying is easier on paper than in real life. There’s the theory of something, then the practice thereof, and theory is easy until you have to apply it and actually follow through.

Theoretically, losing weight is a simple endeavor. Burn more calories than you consume consistently, and eventually, the scale will start to show it. That’s the proven theory and is indisputable. You’re welcome; I just saved you the four easy payments of $29.99 you would have had to shell out for the newest diet guru’s plan.

The practical application of the theory is where people get in trouble. Theoretically, saying no to a piece of warm peach pie with the crumbly streusel topping or a slice of schaum torte is easy. Practically, when your mouth starts to water, and the only thing you’re thinking about is if you have vanilla ice cream in the freezer to make the pie alamode, it’s not so easy.

Trusting and obeying God to give you the means to fulfill your calling seem like simple enough principles. When you’re breaking ground for a six-story orphanage and barely have enough money in the bank to hire someone to dig the hole for half the foundation, trusting and obeying God becomes a battle of faith versus present reality. That’s when standing on faith and believing God will make a way isn’t just something you sing in church but something you anchor everything on.

Faith will carry you from the shore to the boat in the middle of the sea if you can keep your eyes on Jesus. It’s hard to reject the rational side of your brain screaming that it’s impossible to walk on water and trust fully in the reality that nothing is impossible for God.

The morning my grandfather woke up and said God had told him we would build an orphanage in Romania, we had a total of $749 in the bank. I know because I checked. We didn’t have assets we could sell for cash; there were no matching grants or friends we could call with that kind of cheddar, just seven immigrants in a two-bedroom apartment who were barely scraping by themselves.

One of the things I respected about my grandfather is that when God set him on a course, he acted as though he already had all the resources necessary to carry it out. We didn’t wait, drag our feet, or rationalize that someday, perhaps, if things improve or the ministry grows, we would carry out the vision God placed on his heart. He called that morning and started the process of securing the land upon which the orphanage would be built. It has been close to thirty years since the orphanage opened its doors, and its completion was just the start of the miracle. That we’ve been able to keep it open and running through the ups and downs of life and ministry without once having the children go hungry, or the staff go to their families without pay is the continuation of the miracle that was birthed from one act of obedience.

Obedience is how we live our lives; with every new confirmation of how indispensable obedience is, we press in even more. From the outside in, obedience can look like madness to some. They’ll scratch their heads and not understand what you’re doing because God did not instruct them to do it but you.

God told my grandfather he’d be returning to Romania to distribute Bibles again at a time when the current regime had a lock on power, and he was still banned from setting foot on Romanian soil.

He’d bought the plane tickets and the large print Bibles six months before the revolution took place, and when it did, it was so sudden that no one had seen it coming.

He was so sure of having heard the voice of God telling him what he must do that he even shared it with brothers in the Romanian church, who began to low-key mock the closer they got to the end of the year with nothing happening.

Sure enough, by February of 1990, the date for which my grandfather had purchased his plane ticket months in advance, we were one of the first ministries on the ground, distributing Bibles, helping build churches, holding crusades, and taking full advantage of the newfound freedom.

Obedience is never fruitless. You will see the glorious fulfillment of God’s promise to always be by your side when you walk in obedience to Him. Even if you can’t see past the next hill, know that God can, so trust and obey Him fully, for to obey is better than sacrifice.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.