This message was delivered by Sheila Schuller Coleman from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral. It was aired during the Hour of Power program on Hong Kong's ATV World Channel on 28 Feb 2010.
Every Sunday here at the Crystal Cathedral, we have a Sunday school program that I developed about three years ago. It's called Kid Power Plant. I wrote it because we needed Sunday school curriculum and we didn't want to have to pay royalties. We've been using it and the kids are having fun.
A few weeks ago, nine-year-old David was picked up after Sunday school by his mom, who asked him, "David, what did you learn at Sunday School today?"
David said, "Well, Mom, we learned today that God sent Moses on a rescue mission behind enemy lines and he led out thousands of people. Then they came up against the Red Sea. So, Moses had his engineers build a suspension bridge across the sea. When the people got over safely to the other side, he used walkie-talkies to radio his fighter pilots, who came in and went bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp-bang, and brought down that bridge so the people were safe."
David's mom said, "I have a hard time believing that's the story your teacher taught you."
"If you think that's hard to believe, Mom, you should have heard the story they did tell me."
Yep. Those Bible stories are pretty hard to believe, aren't they? Because God's power is unbelievable.
We're going to look at that story of Moses today. Most of us know it backwards and forwards. However, today I want us to look at it through a different lens, and that is the lens of plans, writing our plans and counting on God to turn them right side up. Righting them, r-i-g-h-t-i-n-g them, righting our upside down plans, turning them right side up.
Moses was born a Hebrew male baby at a time when Hebrew male babies were all being killed. According to the plan that Pharaoh had written for Moses, Moses shouldn't have lived. However, Moses' mom hid him in the bulrushes where he was found by Pharaoh's daughter. God took Pharaoh's plan for Moses and turned it, flipped it right side up.
And there was Moses, prince of Egypt, being raised in the palace of Pharaoh. Moses thought he had it pretty good, had it made in the shade, and then God turned Moses' life from upside down to right side up. When Moses saw the Hebrew slaves being beaten, he could take it no longer. He killed one of the taskmasters and then had to flee for his life to the wilderness.
Moses had to rewrite his life plan, now thinking, well I'm just a shepherd. I'm out here with my sheep. Just when he was most likely starting to feel content, all of a sudden, God appears to him in a burning bush that wasn't burning.
God likes to get our attention some how, some way. And, when he does, sometimes I want to say to him, "You know, God, you could have gotten my attention with a burning bush that wasn't burning instead of using these trials and challenges." God will get our attention, nonetheless.
He got through to Moses with burning bush that wouldn't burn. Of course, when Moses saw the bush, he had to get a closer look at what was going on. When he went over to the bush, God said to him, "I am who I am and I need you, Moses, to go and deliver my people."
Moses said, "Who, me? You have the wrong guy. I can't even talk. I st-st-stutter." Moses was willing to limit the plans for his life, to limit the righting of them based on his disability. He wasn't willing to right his plans, making them big enough by depending on God's ability.
So, God reassured him, saying, "I will be with you. You will not go alone. I will be with you."
Moses was convinced to do what God asked, and we all know he had his work cut out for him with the Pharaoh and with all those plagues. Every time Moses said, "Let my people go," and the Pharaoh resisted, God said let my people go with plague after plague, up to ten plagues. Finally, Pharaoh let them go.
As Moses and his people left Egypt, they ran smack dab into the Red Sea. Can you just imagine what it was like to be standing on the shore of that Red Sea and have chariots come thundering down behind you with every warrior decked out in armor and carrying the best weapons? The people became very afraid and they said, "Moses what have you done? We were better off as slaves."
Moses said, "Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid! Stand and see, today, what God can do."
The people were very tempted to limit themselves and limit God and what he could do for them based on their sensibilities, what they could see, what they could hear, what they could touch. But God transcends our limited sensibilities as we look to his abilities. So look what God did. He opened the Red Sea, took his people to freedom, and stopped the Pharaoh's army. He delivered his people. He turned the plans they had and turned them right side up.
I don't know if you've ever written a plan for your life. Today, it's near the beginning of the year, and some of us have written out our New Year's resolutions. It's a good time to think about what plans we could write for our lives.
I wrote plans for my life back when I was an itty bitty little girl. I grew up as Dr. Schuller's daughter and we were taught to dream big and to plan. He taught us, "If you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail."
I was four when Mom and Dad moved out here to California to plant a church. At first, we did not have a church office. No buildings. The church office actually was one of the bedrooms in our little home in Garden Grove. So, Mom had her hands full at the time, especially since she had an infant, my younger brother Robert. In those days, they didn't have disposable diapers and they didn't have clothes dryers. So, she was frequently in the backyard hanging diapers on the clothesline. Or her hands were in the sink washing dishes. If somebody knocked on the front door, Dad or Mom would say, "Sheila, go get the door."
When I opened the door, frequently a neighbor lady would be standing there and often she'd be crying, saying, "I need to see the pastor."
I would ask her in and then I would knock on Dad's "church office" door, the first bedroom on the right, and I would say, "Daddy, someone needs to see you."
I can tell you what that does to a little girl who opens the door day after day to people who are crying and saying they need help. It changes you. I grew up wanting to help people who were hurting. I feel that I had a call in my life when I was a very little girl to be a pastor, to be a minister, but at that time in our denomination, women were not allowed to be pastors. They didn't ordain women until after I graduated from college. So, of course, that was unattainable; it wasn't allowed.
So, since I was a young child, I wanted to help people who were hurting. Eventually, I channeled that desire in a different way. I was inspired when I read a book called "Ten Fingers for God." It was the story of Dr. Iris Schudder who was a surgeon, a medical missionary in India. I was so inspired by her. I thought, that's what I want to do when I grow up. For some reason I thought God wanted me to be a medical doctor in Africa.
Now my boys think this is very hilarious because I like my comfort. I will only go camping if we have a motor home that has air conditioning, a microwave, and a dishwasher. So, when I'm enjoying my creature comforts, they'll sometimes say, "You wanted to be a missionary doctor in Africa? Really, Mom?"
Well, it's true. I did at one time. I studied. I considered that plan very carefully. I made sure I took Latin. I took my science courses. In fact, I was the secretary of our premedical honors society at Hope College. I was sure this was God's call for my life. I had written my plan, I had worked it, and I had lived it.
Then I sent my applications out for med school. Eleven applications, eleven schools. Soon, the letters started to come back. I opened the first one and read the first word: "Unfortunately." The second letter began, "We regret to tell you..." And so it went, rejection letter, after rejection letter, after rejection letter. When I received the eleventh and final one, I thought, wow Sheila, you have failed. You are a great big failure. I didn't feel smart enough. I felt lazy even though I had worked very hard. I felt that I had completely misunderstood God's call for my life even though I had prayed and prayed and prayed, Lord use me; show me your plan for my life.
So there I was with a Bachelor of Science degree in organic chemistry. What was I going to do? Since the fourth grade, this was all I knew I was ever going to think about doing.
When I came home from college, I did what I always did when I came home from school. I always volunteered in our church's youth program. When summer camp time came, I was one of the volunteer camp counselors. Eventually I came on staff in our youth ministry, and remained in ministry from that day forward at the Crystal Cathedral, except for a very short time when God called me to be a public school teacher.
As the years went by, this is where I met the love of my life. Eventually, I worked as a private school administrator as we raised our four boys. Then, when my boys were almost grown, across my desk came a flyer that said, "You can earn your doctorate degree at the University of California at Irvine in Education." I thought, here's a chance for me to turn my upside down failure right side up. I was so excited about it. I looked online and found details about an upcoming information meeting nearby. I told my family. I wanted to get permission from my husband and my boys because I wanted their support. I wanted them to know that we, as a whole family, were behind this. And then I went to the information meeting.
The meeting was in a great big lecture hall filled with hundreds of people interested in the program. And this meeting was just one of several identical informational meetings being held in the region. At the end of the meeting, one person asked the director how many people would be accepted into the program. We all gulped when the director said, "Five." Five? Out of hundreds?
Meanwhile, projected on the screen behind the director, I noticed the mission statement of the program: "This is a doctorate program for public school administrators." I was a private school administrator. I thought, well this isn't for me; there's no hope; I'm not even going to try.
The next morning on our way to school, my youngest son Nicholas said to me, "So, Mom, how did that information meeting go last night?"
I said, "It was ridiculous, Nick. I'm not going to apply."
"You're not going to apply? Why aren't you going to apply?"
I said, "Well, for heavens sakes, Nicholas, there were hundreds there, and they're only going to take five." I didn't want to tell him that years ago I had already received eleven rejection slips from eleven other doctoral programs. I didn't know if I could stand a twelfth rejection.
Then my son, looking at me with disapproving eyes and disappointment all over his face, said to me, "You mean you're not even going to try?" I knew I'd been caught. There was no turning back now because I was not going to model giving up to my son. So, I filled out the application, sent it in, and fully expected to be rejected.
I was shocked to get an email asking me to come in for an interview. Still, I didn't think I was going to get in because I had heard that the director had done her dissertation on challenges to the curriculum by the religious right. I thought, oh my goodness gracious, we're religious. I don't know if we're right or left, but we're religious, and she's just going to see religious as religious right, and I'm not going to stand a chance of getting in. But, you know what, God opened that door and they accepted me, and I had the opportunity to share God's power and God's love with professors and colleagues.
It was so exciting. I thought, okay God, I get it. I get it. I was tempted to write my plan based on my limited abilities versus your unlimited abilities. When it's your will, you open the door.
Then, soon after being accepted into the doctorate program, I felt the need to write Sunday school curriculum for our ministry. I'm so excited because I wrote the first Sunday School curriculum that's been authored by anyone with a doctorate in education. I was teaching God's word while knowing how kids learn. I also used all those courses that I'd completed as a pre-med student, incorporating science into the Sunday School curriculum to show kids how powerful God is. What an amazing God we have!
Through all these twists and turns, God was leading and turning my life right side up.
Last summer, when Dad asked me to give leadership to this ministry, to stand up here, and to preach in this pulpit, I remembered being a little girl, being told that it would be impossible. Nevertheless, I am here preaching, today. It's only by the grace of God; he opens those doors. We never know how he's going to take our upside down lives and turn them right side up.
Recently, I was invited to share with other ministries my knowledge of children, education, and administration to help plant Christian schools overseas. Can you guess in which country? Africa. Liberia, Africa. Yes, "God will have the last word," as my father has often said, "and it will be good."
We never know what God is going to do for us when we let him have his way. Right those plans. Write them big enough for God to fit in. Don't limit your attainabilities as I once did. Don't limit them, as Moses did, based on his disabilities. Write them based on God's abilities and then count on him to right them and turn them right side up.
Lord Jesus Christ, we give to you our lives, today. Do with them as you will in your way and in your time. Amen.
© Copyright Hour of Power 2010. This message was delivered by Sheila Schuller Coleman from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral and aired on the Hour of Power, January 24, 2010.
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