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Author Insight
God's Development Plan Usually Isn't Fast
One of my old pastors, Dr. Mike Freeman, used to say that your talent can take you to a place where your character can’t keep you. I think we see that with NBA superstar Ja Morant. We saw it in Mike Tyson’s early life. Some of our most greatly admired athletes and celebrities of both genders and every race have been plopped onto a platform of sizeable wealth and crumbled underneath the weight of it. The sports and entertainment industry is youth-driven. Sadly, these industries are not set up or are often not concerned with mentoring young people and preparing them for the immense responsibility of wealth and fame. We see a different pattern in God’s development of leaders in the Bible. We often see an apprenticeship period, a Moses-Joshua, Elijah-Elisha type of grooming and developing relationship. We don’t often see superstars suddenly appear on God’s stage of leadership. We see David being developed in the fields with the sheep and fighting the lion and the bear before conquering Goliath. As Christians, we can get discouraged if our success doesn’t match the pattern of “the world,” where we are quickly catapulted onto the biggest stages in front of the brightest lights. If God is at the helm, we may have moments like Joseph where we are right in the middle of God’s development process yet seemingly infinitely far away from obtaining our dreams. That is one of the subjects discussed in this book.
Book Excerpt
Finding Next
This is an excerpt from the chapter "When Our Seasons Don't Make Sense":
For many of us, healing must happen in certain areas of our lives and some character development before we can successfully operate at the next level. Before there is a season of elevation, there are usually seasons of testing, proving, healing, shedding, strengthening, and trust-building.
My old pastor Dr. Mike Freeman used to say that your gifts and talents can take you to a place where your character can’t keep you. We have seen many celebrities whose incredible talent catapulted them to a place of wealth, notoriety, and responsibility that exceeded the strength of their character. They skipped over building a foundation on a rock, or The Rock, and just built a tall building of wealth and celebrity status on sand.
You know the rest of the story. When the winds started to blow on their house, they started to turn to drugs and alcohol. When you serve those gods, when you turn to them and lean on them wholeheartedly, they turn on you, consume you, and destroy you.
God’s plan for you is to test you and prove you all along the way so that when you enter your season of success and prosperity, you are ready to stand in it when the storms come. 3 John 1:2 (NKJV) says, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” Dr. Freeman often said that our external prosperity would never exceed the prosperity of our soul. God wants your soul prosperity, the inner you (mind, will, emotions) to match or exceed your external prosperity. Why? Because God knows that your external prosperity is sustained by your soul prosperity. The devil knows it too.
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