Few things are more maddening to me than when I get an idea and someone says, we tried that before. It’s as if to say once something has been tried, it can never be done again. Now of course the caveat is that what you are trying is not laden with pride and sin. Those things will never work in the long haul, though in the short haul they can appear quite successful. This is usually to distract us and keep us in something that will ultimately be detrimental and/or unfruitful. For the most part, “We tried that before” simply means we struggled and/or we didn’t get what we expected out of it. That is not necessarily a reason to never try something again. After all we don’t give up on walking the first time we fall, do we?
Sometimes the timing just wasn’t right the last time you tried something, or maybe that effort bore exactly the fruit that God intended. Sometimes it’s not about the many it’s about the one. Maybe one person was reached or challenged. That person may never make it through the doors of your church, but God used it to set them on a different path. We won’t know that on this side of glory, but it was still worth it. The more I serve the Lord, the more I understand that God measures success differently than we do. We look at all the tangibles, but God is looking for us to be faithful and to do what He says. So if God is leading you to do something, and someone says we tried that before, remind them that it is a different time, dealing with different people with different gifts and that if the Lord has called you to it, it will reap the benefits He has determined it will reap. We tried it before? Trust the Lord and do it again.
AMOKArts 