POSTED 13 AUGUST, 2008

A Successful Life: Fling Yourself, but Wisely!

by Mark Huey
mark@outreachisrael.net

reproduced from the McHuey Blog

Several decades ago, during the early years of my walk with the Messiah of Israel, I came across a classic book on revival penned in 1956 by Arthur Wallis, entitled In the Day of Thy Power. When I first read it, I noticed a short anonymous statement about a “successful life” tucked between the Table of Contents and Forward to the book. The definition of success caught my attention in such a profound manner that I copied it onto parchment, then framing and hanging it on the wall by my desk at home.

My frequent glances and re-reading of its simple formula made me think often about how one could have a “successful life” in Yeshua the Messiah. It succinctly defines success in life this way:

If you should make the greatest success of your life, try to discover what God is doing in your time, and fling yourself into the accomplishment of His purpose and will.

This straightforward and insightful definition really struck a chord with me. Beyond the inspiration and desire to have a successful life in the Lord as a young Believer, the key element in the statement was “to discover what God is doing in your time” on Earth.

Needless to say, in the mid 1990s when our family discerned and discovered that God was in the process of fulfilling His many prophecies regarding the restoration of all things, we determined to wholeheartedly “fling” ourselves into His work. Nothing became more important to us than seeking to accomplish His purpose and will for our lives—in light of our discovery that He was restoring His people to the original foundations beginning in the Torah.

Consequently over the past fourteen years, we have been privileged to be eye witnesses to many unique circumstances that are part and parcel of this restoration process. Additionally, the Lord has positioned us at times to become personally acquainted with many of the characters who have arisen as the restoration continues to plod along. In an inimitable sort of way, we have been able to participate in many unique and different situations that have taught us much about how God is working through a variety of individuals to accomplish His overall will, sometimes despite their methodologies and teachings. Occasionally at best, we have been concerned, or at worst very disturbed, by the actions and perceived motivations of some of these individuals.

Over the years, we have had to separate ourselves and keep our focus on what we have been called to do in order to maintain our ministry integrity. Thankfully, discernment or the gift of the discerning of spirits, has been one tool we have sought and received from our Heavenly Father—because without it we could have been blindsided more often with perhaps greater damage to our collective souls.

Today, as I get caught up on some e-mail reading after spending some time out of town helping my parents with an upcoming move, I am again overwhelmed by the different options available to those seeking to “fling” themselves into what God is doing at this point in time. However, in spite of the restoration continuing to move forward, the evidence of nefarious acts and actors continues to bedevil the seekers of God and His timing of things. Ironically, we are witnessing an array of human activities that are, in many respects, almost identical repeats of some of the tempting lures of the past decade-and-a-half that we have already experienced. We know that history has a tendency to repeat itself—but we honestly never thought that it could repeat itself so rapidly, in a matter of months, rather than years or decades or scores of decades.

I am quick to remember the adage attributed to P.T. Barnum and made famous by W.C. Fields and other comedians: “There is a sucker born every minute.” This revealing aphorism is perhaps the primary reason that people are so gullible so soon after the profitable ruses have barely left the blogospheres of recent days. On the other hand, proven methods for fleecing the flock (or the gullible suckers) continue to replicate themselves year after year, if not month after month!

We each have the awesome responsibility as Believers to implore our Heavenly Father for clarification each day, as we seek to be led by Him and accomplish His assignments. A few questions that have perhaps not been asked enough by Messianic Believers might be like the following:

·  Is this ministry, speaker, teacher, organization, or movement striving to achieve Your purpose and will on Earth?

·  Heavenly Father, is this [FILL IN THE BLANK] what You desire me to fling myself into with all my heart, soul, strength, and resources?

·  Father, please give me the discernment to know if this is Your will for my life.

·  Is this [FILL IN THE BLANK] what You have created me to do with my life?

·  Father, please give me some concrete confirmation that I am to move forward with what You are leading me to do with my life, talents, time, and treasure.

·  The list could go on and on, but I hope and trust you are getting my point.

If I had the opportunity, I would go back and edit the definition for success with this simple corollary:

Fling yourself, but fling wisely and with great discernment and confirmation that you are flinging your life—because you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Almighty is requesting if not requiring your fling.

Mark Huey (B.A., Vanderbilt University in History and Graduate Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) is the Director of Outreach Israel Ministries (www.outreachisrael.net). He is the author of several books, including: TorahScope, Volumes I & II, and Counting the Omer: A Daily Devotional Toward Shavuot. He is also co-author of Hebraic Roots: An Introductory Study.