{"id":474,"date":"2019-02-17T17:30:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T00:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=474"},"modified":"2019-02-16T18:20:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T01:20:15","slug":"stay-in-your-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=474","title":{"rendered":"Stay in your lane!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\" class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">[To follow <strong><em>The Ewellogy<\/em><\/strong>, please click on <strong><em>Leave a Comment<\/em><\/strong> above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: <strong><em>Notify me of new posts by email<\/em><\/strong>. If your comment is, &#8220;Notify me,&#8221; it won&#8217;t post publicly. If you don&#8217;t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019re exploring lessons from locusts as they are described in Joel 2.7, 8:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>Like warriors they charge<\/em>. Are we on offense, actively trying to make a difference?<\/li><li><em>Like&nbsp;soldiers&nbsp;they scale the wall.<\/em>&nbsp;Are we undeterred by obstacles?<\/li><li><em>They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.<\/em>Does each of us know our job and do it? Can each of us operate within our own calling?<\/li><li><em>They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path.<\/em>&nbsp;Are we content to let others pursue their calling?<br><\/li><li><em>They burst through the weapons and are not halted.<\/em>&nbsp;Do we expect to be effective?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today I want to explore lessons 3 and 4:  <em>they do not swerve from their paths<\/em> and <em>they do not jostle one another.<\/em> This one is simple: stay in your lane!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Each knows his job and does it. (Joel 2.8, MSG)<\/em><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Practically speaking, when we initiate an effort to solve a problem like, say, human trafficking or teen suicide, not everyone that we invite will join us. But that\u2019s OK. God is in charge, and he is free (of course!) to direct his servants where He wants them. Even within a specialized, disciple-making organization like The Navigators, some of us work in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/ministry\/churches\/\">churches<\/a>; others, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/ministry\/military\/\">military<\/a> or on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/ministry\/college\/\">college<\/a> campus; some are moving into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navigators.org\/mission\/navigators-i-58\/\">inner-city neighborhoods<\/a>.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that brings us to the other half of today\u2019s locust lesson: don\u2019t interfere with the other person\u2019s calling! <em>\u201cThey do not jostle one another.\u201d<\/em> Often, when God calls us to specific action, we are so excited about it (rightly so) that we want everyone on board with us (not necessarily a good thing).\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few years ago, an early-morning men\u2019s bible study I was leading in a downtown church was attended by men from the in-residence program of the nearby rescue mission. These men added a much-needed and sometimes colorful dimension to our table discussions! The point here is that there are many organizations in that city serving the poor: the Rescue Mission was one. There was a soup kitchen run by another church, and all the churches cooperated to create an organization to meet day-to-day needs. My job was to help train the men spiritually\u2014something that is very important\u2014 but it would have been silly for any of us to criticize another ministry just because they weren\u2019t doing what we were doing.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;  and there are varieties of service,  but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. (1 Corinthians 12.4 &#8211; 6, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>So tend to your knitting. You&#8217;ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God. (Romans 14.12, MSG)<\/em><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re exploring lessons from locusts as they are described in Joel 2.7, 8: Like warriors they charge. Are we on offense, actively trying to make a difference? Like&nbsp;soldiers&nbsp;they scale the wall.&nbsp;Are we undeterred by obstacles? They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.Does each of us know our job and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=474\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Stay in your lane!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-7E","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":475,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}