Devotions for Disciples

Recently, Ben and I teamed up to send a package to my sister in South Alabama. The mailing label was created, and the box was packed, taped, and ready to go. Ben took the box to the post office, came home that afternoon, and announced that it would be delivered in five days. I told my sister to expect it on Tuesday, but the box did not arrive at the destination on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Using the tracking number provided by the post office, we discovered that the package was being “returned to sender.” No other explanation was given. Puzzled and perplexed, all we could do was to wait for the box to arrive back where it all started. After a couple of weeks, the box finally made its way back to us, and to our amazement, the address was wrong. The house number was wrong. The street number was wrong. One of us had either read the address incorrectly or the other had typed in the wrong numbers. Thus – returned to sender. 

This Christmas, we had several people let us know that their Christmas cards had come back to them – again, returned to sender. Why? Because we no longer use a Post Office Box, and the forwarding time had expired. The same thing happens in the electronic world. If something as small as a dot is left out placed incorrectly in an email address, guess what happens. Return to sender.

This made us stop and think. In both situations, the mail was returned. Same response, but two different reasons. For one, the address did not exist and had never existed. For the other, there was still a Post Office Box there, but it didn’t belong to us.  It’s almost like what happens in our daily walk with God. There are destinations to which He has appointed for us to arrive – just like the package or the Christmas cards. It’s not like the Father slaps a mailing label on us or hands us a set of post cards with names and addresses to guide us. Even so, His plan is in place. If we are not aware that the Father is at work in and around us, so very often we will return to our original destination without accomplishing what the Sender had intended. 

We can find ourselves in the wrong places for many different reasons. Has the Father given you a job? a ministry? Of course He has. If you are a believer, He has sent you to serve somewhere. The question is, have you accepted the job? the ministry position? the call? Know this. When the Father has sent you to an appointed destination, there are no wrong addresses – no returns to sender. There is a purpose, a reason, that we have been sent to that very destination, and we must discover all of the possibilities of ministry for ourselves.

Sometimes, when we go where He’s called us, we may find ourselves dissatisfied with the assignment. Maybe it’s because we don’t like the location, or we think we deserve something better. Ego is an awful trait that can cause us to feel that we are better than the place we have been given in God’s plan. That’s a sad statement, but too often it is true. But it is in those moments of dissatisfaction that God can call us to humble ourselves and see that His plan is always the right plan. That when you answer His call, that one place is the only place where you will find true satisfaction.