When you enter into your calling, it will take a long time for everything to work out for you – difficulties are inevitable. Moreover, the enemy of human souls knows perfectly well: if you have reached the direct line of your calling, it is dangerous for him and his satanic plans. Therefore, he especially begins to disturb the son of God or the daughter of God, who are engaged in God’s work. His demons begin to circle around us and give us false thoughts and feelings. This is self-pity, disappointment, a sense of sacrifice and finally a feeling of loneliness.
In fact, this is a lie, because God takes care that we do not remain alone in this state. But the child of God himself, who is now struggling and has not figured out much yet, is creating a wall around himself. So when you are in a struggle and it seems to you that people have put up a wall in front of you, know that this is a deception. The wall has arisen from within you because of your frustrations, the difficulties of the struggle, self-pity, especially if you are used to feeling like a victim in life. God knows all this, smiles and leads us, but it seems to us that everyone around us is an enemy.
False Solitude and God’s rebuke
So it was with me when our church began in 1995. At first there were about 20 people in the hall at the service, and everything looked completely different from what was told to me in the prophecies. I felt sorry for myself and wanted to run away. In those days, I was frankly afraid to pray. I knew in advance what God might say to me. I thought that if I did not pray and ask God, He would not tell me anything, and I would pretend that He did not tell me anything.
But my friend Oleg Shcherbakov came to me, who at that time was already a pastor in Nikolaev. I began to share out of my exhausted sacrificial soul to him, and he replied: “It’s okay. You will get through it all. You can handle it.” And I thought: “And he is called a friend? I told him and he has such a cruel soul… What insensitivity! I won’t talk to anyone!”
What he said was from God, but I did not accept it. What should I do? People don’t understand me. No one supports me in my suffering. I pray: “Lord! What should I do? Why is this happening? But I went according to Your will, and this is what happens. There are less than 30 people in the hall, a couple of crazy people are sitting, there are almost no non-believers. And this is the beginning of Your community?!” And the Lord says to me: “Rebellion.”
A loving father can be strict
Rebellion? Can you imagine how embarrassed I was? Only after a while, I realized that my dear Papa was talking to me, Who did everything for me to enter into my calling. He prepared everything. He did so much that when, years later, I remembered it, I was ready to cry and sob from His love for me, how He had protected me and how he cared. But if He then had said: “Oh, you my poor and unfortunate soul. I know what you mean. What do you want, little one?” “I want it all to go somewhere, to dissolve.” “Okay, let it dissolve.” And what would have happened?
In fact, a dear and loving Father can be quite strict with us. When He prepared everything, confirmed our calling from different sides, put faith in us, gave strength, power, surrounded us with people who are ready to join us in this God’s work and we are capricious because of the first failures or because it didn’t start the way we thought, He might be quite strict.
He tells certain people to speak strictly to us. He speaks out of His love to ourselves: “Darling, I love you very much. But what you’re doing now is a rebellion. Do you know who the father of rebellion is? The same one who is the father of lies. And he’s a murderer. Therefore, if you continue to sing to his tune, accept his thoughts as your own, be capricious and only pity yourself, and not those people who are waiting for you, then he will gain power over you.”
Either win or lose: there is no third option
Due to the fact that the Holy Spirit repeated this to me over and over again for several days, I realized that it was useless for me to complain, act up and whine. After all, this is a false “weakness”. We ourselves give strength to this weakness – to this disappointment and despondency. But perhaps we are already on the verge of a real God’s victory.
I remember that in the last days before the breakthrough began, I felt especially bad – I did not want anything, I only whined. All I wanted was to get really sick so that I could have an alibi for why I had left my calling. And since the enemy had the same desire, I caught a little cold, but, to my great disappointment, I caught only a little cold. Later I realized that God stood for me, although I stood for the devil.
It was literally on the eve of the day when, with the help of my friend and student Oleg Shcherbakov, I realized that either / or. Loving Dad very often puts us in the position of either/or. We want to have seven or eight more options between these two “or”. But God does everything so that we are left with only two alternatives: “Either you refuse and then you lose everything (or almost everything), or you stop rebelling, stop dancing to the tune of the devil, fully enter into your calling and you take on what I have entrusted to you.”
God showed me through my friend these two alternatives. Oleg got tired of my whining. He said: “Listen, that’s enough already. Come on, either you leave it all, stop complaining, or you devote yourself completely to it and take responsibility not only for the good and pleasant, not only for victories and for what people could praise you for, but also for all the problems, defeats and failures in this ministry, and you say: “God, this is now not just Yours, but this is all mine together with You.” And that morning I chose the second option.
Our Decisions Enable God to Act
As soon as I chose it, the next day everything began to change. And not only my mood, my thoughts, but my general condition, including physical. Circumstances began to change. Out of nowhere, the very Jews who did not want to go before went. Out of nowhere, different people began to come.
Some assistant ministers, seeing my despondent state, behaved in this way themselves. After all, who wants to devote himself to someone who is afraid to devote himself? But as soon as they felt that I had made a decision (I didn’t even say it!), some kind of toggle switch was switched in the spiritual world and these guys happily began to work.
None of us is a lone spiritual ranger. We have to be on a team, we have to be part of a team. Because our loving Dad made sure that we complemented each other and none of us could say: “Only God is my leader. I take everything directly from Him. I don’t need anyone.”
As soon as we begin to obey God in what He leads us to, our complexes that make us conceited and proud, our rejection that makes us behave as if we do not need anyone, they begin to lose ground in our soul and life. Then we see with God’s calm gaze our brothers and sisters with whom God has united us, and without whom we will not be successful. And then we understand that the Lord has placed us in a certain spiritual family, in which His love for us will be fully revealed if we simply be faithful to Him in His work in this family.
Our decisions affect our brothers and sisters
Little by little, it started to dawn on me. I realized that this community, which has just begun to be built, is the real family of God and it will be the real family of God. I realized that in this community such people will rise who will have gifts and talents that I do not have, that God will raise in it such people who will be in some things more worthy than me, but I will rejoice with them with those newly saved people who are sure to come. Because one person whom God put in this place, despite his shortcomings, surrendered to God.
When one person surrenders to God, God’s grace around him begins to hook other people. If you are thinking: “What will change from the fact that I really surrender, really trust Him, stop rebelling and try not to whine about anything anymore?” I want to tell you that you will definitely see how things around you will begin to change people. Because God has placed you in connection with certain people. And if someone falls into a real dependence on God, then through him this dependence begins to free people around from all sorts of bad addictions.
When I saw those few ministers in our congregation begin to rejoice, I was surprised. Because I have not yet begun to somehow encourage them, give them perspectives and tell them about the prophecies that were for the community.
Conclusions
Our calling is to be true children of God and serve Him as a son serves his father, out of joy, out of strength, out of fullness, because His life in us is our calling. And our calling is not just to serve, not just to serve a little, to receive something from God for it and that’s it. But to serve precisely on the basis of family relationships: He is my Dad, He will always be my Dad and He will always love me. And if He calls me, if He was strict with me, if He rebuked me, then first of all for my sake, so that I would not lose the most precious thing that He has entrusted to me. I have no idea what it will look like yet. But I know that this is the most important thing, and through this His other children will come to Him, see His smile and be freed from hell.
Boris Grisenko, rabbi of KEMO / Как не упустить своё призвание (kemokiev.org)
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