Okay, So We Finally Get it Right
Perhaps you have gotten past this point in your walk with God. Perhaps you have gotten yourself in so many messes and Jesus has had to bail you out enough times already. You no longer want to dally in the world’s delights. You’ve got your eyes on the Cross, your feet on the Path, and your heart set toward Heaven.

So why is it, then, that so many of us still struggle to figure out what it is God wants us to do with our lives? Why do we feel we aren’t successful? That even with all our victories, we still feel defeated?

It’s common. In my ministry, I hear it all the time. “At least you know what God has called you to do. Surely you never feel like a failure.”

I’m Not Alone
I do, and I’m not alone. Zechariah surely felt the same way. Outwardly, he had everything going for him. He and his wife Elizabeth were both of Aaron’s line, above reproach, and he was a priest in the temple of the Lord. But the one thing they truly wanted, they did not have. A child.

What were they to do? Without fertility clinics and with only unanswered prayers, they simply lived day to day doing the next right thing. And then it was Zechariah’s once-in-a-lifetime turn to burn incense before the Lord. In the midst of “just doing his job,” God’s angel met the old priest and told him something magnificent. “Your wife will have a son…”[vi]

And not just “any son.” Their son would be the one who would prepare the way for Messiah, to shout, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”[vii]