Go. Set. Ready.

He [Abraham] did not know where he was going.

Hebrews 11:8

You’ll never be ready.

You’ll never be ready to get married. You’ll never be ready to have kids. You’ll never be ready to start a business or go back to school or move to the mission field. You’ll never be ready financially, emotionally, or spiritually. You’ll never have enough faith, enough cash, or enough courage. And if you are looking for an excuse, you will always find one.

I never have been, and I’m sure I never will be, ready for anything God has called me to do. This doesn’t mean I haven’t prepared myself. I’ve worked hard getting an education, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be ready for anything God has called me to. And that’s OK. God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.

If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life.

The author of Hebrews writes, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (11:8).

Abraham didn’t know the final destination, but it didn’t keep him from taking the first step in the journey. What’s the first step or next step you need to take in your journey? If you take the first step, God will reveal the second step. The problem is that most of us want the twenty-five-year plan before we’re willing to step out in faith. We want to know exactly where we’re going and exactly when we’ll get there, but God doesn’t operate that way. He gives us just enough revelation, just enough grace, just enough strength. Why? So we will live in daily dependence on Him. He doesn’t want us to rely on the revelation; He wants us to rely on Him.

Without knowing where he was going, Abraham took the first step. And God honored it. There are moments in life when you need to quit a job, make a move, or end a dating relationship. And you need to take that step without knowing what the next step will be. Don’t wait for more revelation; be obedient to the amount of revelation God has given you.

Why Not?

There is an old adage: ready, set, go. And I know it’s predicated on the importance of preparation. But I think it’s backward. You’ll never be ready. You’ll never be set. Sometimes you just need to go for it. The sequence of faith is this: Go. Set. Ready.

Some people spend their entire lives getting ready for what God wants them to do, but they never end up doing it because they never come to the realization that they’ll never be ready. This is where so many of us get stuck. Our failure to act on what we know God is calling us to do not only breeds doubt and discouragement; it’s a form of disobedience.

Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus said “Go.” So why do we operate with this red-light mentality? Why are we waiting for the green light we’ve already been given?

The vision of National Community Church is to have twenty locations by the year 2020. Launching new locations is part of our DNA. But when we launched our first multisite location, there was a little resistance to the idea. Some people asked why. And on one level, this is a fair question. But I honestly think it’s the wrong question. The real question is, “Why not?”

Why wouldn’t we continue to launch new locations and try to reach more people? Why wouldn’t we continue to do more of what God is blessing? Why wouldn’t we multiply?

As Christ-followers, we are called to take a why not approach to life. It’s an approach to life that dares to dream. It’s an approach that’s bent toward action. And it doesn’t look for excuses not to do something. Don’t get me wrong. It’s awfully difficult to discern the will of God. Even after prayer and fasting, it usually entails making tough decisions. And I’m certainly not advocating a thoughtless or prayerless approach to decision making. We need to know that God is calling us to devote our lives to missions, take the internship offer, quit our job, or make the move. But I wonder if we’re so afraid of doing the wrong thing that it keeps us from doing the right thing.

Get Off the Ship

My friend Dr. George Wood has an amazing painting in his office of an African man standing on a high hillside overlooking the ocean. There is a large steamship on the horizon and a smaller canoe coming toward the shoreline. In this instance, the story is worth a thousand paintings. It symbolizes the importance of going before we’re set or ready.

In 1908, newly commissioned missionaries John and Jessie Perkins were on board a steamship rounding the coast of Liberia. They knew God had called them to Africa, but like Abraham, they didn’t know exactly where God wanted them to go. So they purchased tickets and trusted that God would tell them where to get off. As the ship made its way around Garraway Point, they sensed the Holy Spirit was prompting them to get off the ship.

Unknown to the Perkinses, there was a young man living in the region named Jasper Toe. He was a God-fearing man who practiced the religious rituals passed down by his ancestors, but he had never heard the name of Jesus. One night he looked into the night sky and prayed a simple prayer: “If there is a God in heaven, help me find You.”

As Jasper stood under the stars, a voice he had never heard before spoke to him. “Go to Garraway beach. You will see a box on the water with smoke coming out of it. And from that box on the water will come some people in a small box. These people in this small box will tell you how to find Me.”

Jasper Toe traveled seven days on foot to Garraway beach, arriving on Christmas Day, 1908. From the shore he saw a black box — a steamship — floating on the water with smoke coming out of it. And that is when John Perkins and his wife sensed the Holy Spirit saying, “Get off the ship here. This is where I want you to go.”

When they went to the captain of the ship and asked him to let them get off the ship, he said, “I can’t let you off the boat here. This is cannibal country. People go in there and never come back.”

John Perkins insisted, “God wants us to get off the boat.”

The captain brought the steamship to a halt, and the Perkinses were placed in a mammy chair that swung them over the side of the ship. They got into a canoe along with all of their belongings, and they rowed to shore in that little box. When they got to the shore, Jasper Toe was waiting to welcome them. He motioned for them to follow him, and they did. They could not speak each other’s language, but the Perkinses followed Jasper Toe all the way back to his village. They eventually learned the language of the people there. They started the first church in that village. And Jasper Toe was their first convert.

Those who knew Jasper Toe described him as one of the godliest men they had ever met. And his legacy is the hundreds of churches he helped to establish in the country of Liberia.

What if the Perkinses had ignored the prompting of the Holy Spirit? What if they had dismissed that God-idea as a bad idea? What if they had asked why instead of why not? What if they had decided to play it safe and stay on the ship?

I’m sure God could have intervened in another way. And I would like to think He would have. But who can calculate the opportunity costs when we ignore the promptings of the Spirit, thereby missing divine appointments? Faith is not faith until it is acted on.

Go. Set. Ready.

If you are looking for excuses, you will always find one.