Unstoppable by Christine CaineSample

When I was twenty-two, I volunteered at a youth center a few nights each week. I served food to broken and hurting young people, invited them to tell me their stories, and listened to them share their problems. I loved encouraging them, serving them, and trying to be a light in their lives. Sometimes it was easy, and sometimes it was messy. Sometimes it involved tasks that seemed small, tedious or insignificant, and other times it involved helping someone be healed of a deep wound. No matter what God put before me, the lesson he wanted me to learn was clear: To thrive, we must learn to embrace our place. Embracing our place means that no matter what season we are in, or what our circumstances are, we have to see ourselves as important members of God’s divine relay--right where we are. We have to accept and do his will for today in light of his plan for tomorrow, and for all eternity. God makes this lesson so clear in the life of David. When the prophet Samuel went to find the next king of Israel, David was a young shepherd boy tending his father’s sheep, and by our human standards, he was the least qualified to be anointed the next king of Israel. But God saw differently, so one day, while serving in obscurity, while embracing his place, God called him out of the field and anointed him king. You are like David. Wherever you are, you are not in that place by accident. God is doing a work in you so he can do a work through you. He’s preparing you in the place where you are so he can take you to the place he’s prepared for you to be. In the meantime, have confidence in God’s design and placement, and embrace your place. God chooses the part we play and he promotes us in his perfect timing. He wants our obedience first, so trust him and rejoice in this season. Trust that he is building his strength and character in you because he wants to grow your capacity to carry greater batons in the future. What place in your life do you wrestle with embracing? How can you embrace that place today? Adapted from Unstoppable: Step into Your Purpose, Run Your Race, Embrace the Future by Christine Caine. Copyright © 2014 by Christine Caine. Reprinted with permission of Zondervan Publishing. All rights reserved.