Richard & Lindsay Roberts
You know… it’s not the mile walk that will kill you ― it’s the pebble in your shoe! As you get more and more rocks in your shoe, you’ll suddenly find you can’t walk.
The same thing happens with your life. You have to get the pebbles ― those things that hinder ― out of your life. Then you can get yourself in a position to do what God says for you to do. Open your heart, give it to Him, and believe that He will pour you out blessings where there shall not be room enough to receive them.
First Chronicles 21 tells how Satan provoked King David to number Israel. David told Joab to number the people, but God was displeased, as He considered it a sin against Heaven. God sent a messenger to David saying “You’ve disobeyed Me. Now I give you the choice of three punishments: three years of famine, three months of being overrun by your enemies, or three days of deadly pestilence.” David repented before the Lord God, and said, “Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies” (v. 13). So he chose the pestilence.
For three days, pestilence raged in Israel, and seventy thousand men died. David became disconsolate in his heart and said, “God, don’t lay this sin to the charge of the people. They didn’t sin; I committed the sin.” The Lord instructed David to go to the threshing floor of Ornan and sacrifice unto the Lord.
David went to the threshing floor and said to Ornan, “Let me buy this threshing floor from you … then I will build an altar to the Lord and the plague will stop” (v.22, TLB). Ornan offered David not only the threshing floor but also his oxen and even the tools for the sacrifice. He said, “I give it all to you” (v 23, TLB).
And King David said to Ornan, “Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost (v. 24).”
If you’ll be useable clay in the Master’s hand―if you will put Him first in your life and give Him something that costs you in your total being, rather than something that costs you nothing―then God can miraculously turn things around. If you’ll start saying what God says instead of what people say, you’ll begin to see miracles happening in your life.