God
gives purpose, but focus has to come from you.
1 Kings chapter 13 records the story of an unnamed man of God from Judah. This man of God had
a mission. He had a message from God to
deliver to the king who was defiling the altar in Bethel. The man of God delivered that message with
courage and integrity. The man of God
spoke truth to power and God confirmed His word with signs that stayed the king’s
order to arrest the man of God. The man
of God fulfilled his Divinely appointed purpose in the face of corruption and
personal attacks.
But then things got easy.
The king invited the man of God to rest, refresh himself,
and enjoy a reward from the royal treasury.
The man of God replied, “If you
were to give me half your house, I would not go in with you; nor would I eat
bread nor drink water in this place. For so it was commanded me by the word of the
Lord, saying, ‘You shall not eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the
same way you came.’ ”
So he
went another way and did not return by the way he came to Bethel (1 Kings
13:8-11).
Having kept to his purpose, the man of God was on his way
home, but he stopped to rest near where all this had happened. While he was resting, doing nothing, just
chillin’, an old prophet from Bethel caught up to him. The old prophet invited the man of God to
come back to his house in Bethel to rest and have a meal.
The
man of God replied, I cannot return with you nor go in with you; neither can I
eat bread nor drink water with you in this place. For I have been told by
the word of the Lord, ‘You shall not eat bread nor drink water there, nor
return by going the way you came.’ ” (1 Kings 13:16-17).
But the old prophet said, “I too am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of
the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread
and drink water.’ ” (1 Kings 13:18).
Well, the man of God was tired, and hungry, and thirsty
after his long journey, and he still had a long journey ahead of him. It was a sweet offer, and it came from an old
saint, a prophet. No, it wasn't the what
God had said before, but it would be so nice to take
the old prophet at his word and enjoy a home-cooked meal.
The man of God lost his focus. He went home with the old prophet. They ate.
They drank. They talked. They chilled.
Problem is that the end of verse 18 says that the old
prophet was lying to him.
He wasn’t lying about being a prophet; he was lying about
having a new message from God.
(Now why would a genuine prophet lie, especially to another man
of God? Perhaps the od prophet just
really, really wanted to talk to the man who’d stood up to the king. He didn’t mean any harm to the man of God. The prophet probably figured that a little
lie was O.K. as long as he said “I decree and I declare” before he told the lie.)
Funny thing is that when you lose focus, it’s often the
people who distracted you who are the first to call you out for getting off
track.
Now it
happened, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came to the
prophet who had brought him back; and he cried out to the man of
God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you have
disobeyed the word of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment which the Lord
your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank
water in the place of which the Lord
said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your corpse shall not come to
the tomb of your fathers.’ “ (1 Kings 13: 20-22)
Of course at this point the man of God hops on his own
donkey and hits the road, but a lion snatches him off and kills him.
Only, the lion doesn’t harm the donkey, and the donkey doesn’t
try to run away, and the lion doesn’t eat the man he killed. The lion and the donkey just stand there over
the body on the side of the road so everybody passing by can see that “It is the man of God who was disobedient to
the word of the Lord. Therefore the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which
has torn him and killed him….” (1 Kings 13:26).
The man of God had a purpose; he had an anointing; and he
had the power of the Holy Ghost. But he
lost focus.
In a moment of rest and reverie, he let somebody convince him
to do what God had told him not to do.
God gives each of us a purpose but when we’re tired, when we’re
just chillin’, or when we feel all good
about a particular success we tend to lose focus. We tend to drop our guard and get a little
slack. We become susceptible to the temptation
to compromise on the fine points of God’s directions. We get enticed by the offer of a slight and
understandable deviation from the Lord’s commands.
It’s not like we denounce our calling. It’s not like we’re following the idolatrous
king into sin. We’re just taking a
little break with some good people and hanging out when we should be humping it
down the road in the direction God already told us to go.
We have to stay focused.
We have to keep on the grind.
We have to keep going and going until we get to the point
where God says we can rest and be refreshed.
You should hear the counsel of godly men and women, but the
weight of the decision is yours alone to bear.
In the end, no body----- and I mean NO body------ should convince
you to deviate from the purpose and plan God has given you.
Remember that the lion didn’t kill the lying old
prophet.
The lion killed the man of God who lost his focus and
deviated from God’s plan.
God will give you purpose, but you have to provide the
focus.
That said, though I stayed up late last night, but you'll have to
excuse me while I go exercise for 30 minutes and knock some things off my to-do
list.
I’ll chill when I’m done.
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a pastor, writer, community organizer
and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
