I remember that day well. We packed the car and the two kids we had at the time and drove off heading towards our first assignment for God. When you feel the call of God, everything else fades away, nothing is as important as your call. It’s so fresh and new it’s much like being born again. Your past life seems to be so far away in the past, and now it can’t touch you. Now you are doing God’s business, and His plan and purpose for your life is your focus. Nothing can compare to the awesome privilege of knowing you are called of God for some great assignment.

I guess I thought that since I had surrendered to go into ministry that I was living by a new set of laws, and the laws of the land no longer applied to me. But, no one is exempt from natural or spiritual laws. I’ll never forget it. I was traveling down the road on my new assignment for God. Well, not just traveling, I was speeding down the road. All of the sudden the laws of the land were presented to me with blue lights. The policeman came to my window and I promptly begin to tell him how I was in such a hurry because I was late for my speaking engagement. Being new in the ministry, I thought that my “call from God” carried a lot of clout, but the policeman wasn’t at all interested in my ministry.

The interaction went like this:

He said, “Ma’am, do you realize you’re going 75 in a 55 zone?”

“I’m sorry, Sir, I’m sure you will understand that I’m the keynote speaker for an important meeting and I’m running late.”

Me, being the keynote speaker didn’t impress him at all.

He went on to say, “Can you tell me why you’re not warning your seatbelt?”

“Oh, you see the seatbelt would wrinkle my dress.”

Then he saw that my driver’s license had my Florida address and worse than that, the license had expired. I explained we had just moved to NC on an assignment for God and I had simply not had time to take care of such matters.

Well, my bubble was burst when he handed me a $250 speeding ticket. I realized then, he wasn’t as impressed with my calling as I was.

That evening I explained the whole event to my husband and tried to convince him that it was the enemy that was attacking me. I was so sure that he was attacking me because I had such an important calling. But, the Lord spoke to my spirit and gave me a truth I have never forgotten in these 30 years. “The enemy can only use what we give him to use.” The truth was, I was a speeder before my call from God. The enemy used my issue of not obeying the laws of the land.

What I learned from that as I have thought about it over the years, was the normal life carries a responsibility for us to live out what we teach. If we preach it and don’t live it, then the enemy has a lot to work with. He doesn’t wait until it’s convenient to pull the rug out from under us either. He waits until he has a grand audience – a mega church, a TV program, or a successful ministry following – that is watching and then he pulls the rug out or turns the blue lights on.

The problem is, there’s a universal law that applies to everyone and every generation and walk of life. It is the spiritual law of sowing and reaping found in Galatians 6:7. This law says we will reap what we have sown. So when the sun comes up and a new day dawns, that day is full of things we’re reaping, both good and bad. It may be good seeds that we planted 20 years ago or in the same day we may also reap from a bad seed we planted 20 years ago. The most destructive seeds are the seeds of judgments against people who God has placed us under.

When something painful happens to us in childhood and it’s not dealt with properly by those in authority over us, our sinful response is to judge them and vow we will NEVER handle the situation like they did. The seed is planted into the ground and we forget about it. A farmer knows that a natural seed can lie dormant for 50 plus years. Once the temperature is warm enough for germination to take place, the seed will sprout. The same is true in our lives. A seed that was sown years ago can lay dormant until the right season and all of a sudden, it produces a harvest. The Bible tells us that God is not mocked, and we will reap from the seeds we have sown both good and bad. No-one is exempt.

Denise Boggs

Co-founder of Living Waters Ministry, Denise Boggs is passionate about healing and has a deep hunger for the Word of God. She is the author of over 20 workbooks and multiple small group curriculum. Denise has also written the full-length books, “Healing and Restoring the Heart”, “Restoring the Family”, and her newest released: “Breaking Free from Sickness and Disease”.

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