God on the Go: Get Ready to Stay

Do you get excited before you go on a vacation, or a trip, and think about all the things you’re going to do? Sometimes we get so excited ahead of time, but circumstances change and then we have to stay put. God wants us to wait until His timing is right… How do you handle that? It can be hard, but I have a challenge for you in this week’s episode. Let’s dive in!

What’s New!

Monday Story:

• Sometimes God asks us to get ready to be content, that we will be heading into a quiet season of life.

Tuesday Key Verse:

• Luke 24:49 – “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”

Wednesday Prayer:

• God, thank you for the times that you have me stay, even when I might want to go. Help me to be patient when I have to wait. Help me to look for your direction. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Thursday Question:

• Are you someone who likes to be on the go everyday? Or do you like it better when you can stay home? Why?

Friday Fun Fact:

• Q: What percentage of Americans leave their home everyday, are on the go?
• A: 90% of Americans leave their homes at least once a day and usually more.

Show Notes:

To get this week’s episode and daily text prompts, text the word Go to 89419.
If you are in Canada, text GodOnTheGo to 866-729-1065

Transcription:

Do you get excited before you go on a vacation or a trip? Does it just spill your mind? All the things that you’re going to get to do? I can be like that. And one of my favorite places to get to go during the summer is to my brother’s. My brother has a house on a lake. We have to travel quite a long ways to get there, either by plane or sometimes we drive, which takes a really long time. But even with the travel that’s involved, I’m always so excited to get to the lake. It’s just one of the best places and we have such a fun time getting to see each other and having our family members there.

But one summer, just as we were getting ready to leave to go to the lake, my brother had to call me and say, I’m so sorry. There’s been a change of plans. We’re not going to be able to do it this summer. And it just kind of felt like wah-wah-wah. We had to get ready to stay, instead of getting ready to go like we had been getting ready for. This is God on the Go, part of the Purposely Podcast Network where we help you make the minutes matter. And I’m Julie Lyles car, and I think that’s one of the tough things when you’ve been excited to go somewhere and plans change and you need to stay. And then we have this thing in our family also, we’ve got some people who live in my family in this house who are wanting to go all the time. They want to leave the house every single day. They want to be able to hang out with other people all the time. And then we have a few people who are a little bit more like I am. Kind of homebodies like to have days at home where we don’t go anywhere.

But for those of us who like to be home, overall, we are not the most common kind of people. Did you know that Americans leave their homes about 90% of Americans leave their homes at least once a day and usually more. Think about it, you’re probably going to school and then you’re going to practice and then you’re going to the grocery store with your mom and then you’re running a couple of errands and maybe you have to go to the post office and you’re doing all these things where you’re just go, go, go, go. We are not very good at getting ready to stay. And yet, sometimes as much as we’re wanting to be on the go all the time, God wants us to stay put sometimes, until his timing is ready.

It reminds me of what Jesus said to his followers after he came back from being on the cross. Do you remember? Jesus died on the cross and he was put in a tomb and three days later after he had been dead, he came back to be with his disciples and with the people who had known him. Now, I would have to imagine that they were so excited when they realized this was Jesus. There were probably all kinds of things that they wanted to go and do because of this experience that they had had with Jesus. After all, it was this incredible miracle. Maybe some of them had been in Jerusalem where all of this happened. Maybe they’d been in Jerusalem for a while away from their families. Maybe they wanted to get back to their families and tell them what they had experienced. But Jesus says to do something really interesting. As his followers are thinking of all the places that they might want to go, he asks them to get ready to stay.

He told his followers to stay in the city, in Jerusalem, and to wait for the Holy Spirit to come. In Luke 24 verse 49, Jesus says,

And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my father promised, but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.

Isn’t that interesting? A lot of times when I think about obeying God, I’m always thinking about where he might want me to go, but I don’t always think about where he might want me to stay. There’s something about learning to stay that can also be so good for us. Think about it. Have you had times that you’ve been on a team or you’ve had a certain teacher or you’ve been part of a certain group and you thought, I just want to go. This isn’t my thing anymore. I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.

And yet sometimes after you talk to your parents, after you pray about it, you might feel like, for a little while, you’re supposed to stay. Maybe you haven’t learned all the things you’re supposed to learn yet from this particular situation. Maybe there’s someone that God has for you to become a friend to, or maybe there’s someone you can encourage, that if you stay, you’ll be able to do that and you might miss that opportunity otherwise.

I just think it’s really interesting to think about the idea of getting ready to stay if that’s what God calls you to do. We’ve been talking about getting ready to go and getting ready to see and all kinds of amazing things when we think about the adventure that we’re on with God. And yet, sometimes the thing he may ask us to do, is to get ready to stay.

Hey, I would love it if you would text the word go, that’s GO to the number 8 9 4 1 9. That’s 8 9 4 1 9. And when you do that, I’ll send you texts with memory verses and discussion questions and trivia facts and all kinds of fun things so you can keep this conversation going when you’re on the go or if God has asked you to stay. I’ll see you next time on God, on the go.