The Light Is Green
I want to share with you something that helped me greatly when I was a younger believer desiring to evangelize, walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and minister healing to others.
I used to pray and ask God for some kind of confirmation that He wanted me to lay hands on a particular person before I did it. I would do the same as far as going out and sharing Jesus in public. God would give me these confirmations, but this was because I was still a novice.
The model I was operating under was basically this: The light is red. I will wait until I get a green light from God, and then I will go. In other words, I will go when I get a direct leading from the Holy Spirit.
But then the explicit “green light” confirmations stopped, and I started wondering, should I just do nothing because God isn’t giving me these confirmations anymore?
What I had to realize from Scripture is this: The light is green! I don’t have to wait for a message that the light is green, because it already is. Jesus already told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel, and that we would lay hands on the sick and they would recover (Mark 16:15-18). Such activity is pre-authorized. I don’t need any form of “confirmation” to do something that Jesus already said I can do. I can just go do it and expect Him to work with me!
Now, you may wonder, aren’t there times when God really DOESN’T want you to get involved with certain people or do things in certain locations? YES, that can happen. But the model we see in Acts is that you keep going with the green light unless God explicitly gives you a red light. The light is green by default, not red, so you go unless God explicitly says otherwise.
You can stay in motion, too – if you keep stopping to wait to see if there is a red light, you’ve basically put yourself back in “red light” mode again. As many have said, it’s easier to steer a car that’s moving than one that’s parked. You have a green light, so go! If God has a reason to avoid some particular thing, expect that He’ll tell you as you stay in motion, not as you sit around praying about green lights and red lights.
We see this in the following passage where Paul and his companions tried to go a couple places to preach and were told not to do so. We can see that Paul did not wait for a green light. He had that already. He went unless there was an explicit red light:
Acts 16:6-10:
Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,
After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.
And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas.
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
Notice that even when God gave Paul a red light, it wasn’t long before He gave Paul a green light to go where He wanted him to go next.
Sometimes a person who is called to preach is asked to come share somewhere and the budding preacher, who has no other preaching engagements lined up, says, “I need to pray about this and see if God wants me to go to that place.” That’s the wrong question! That’s the “red light” concept again. The only question that young preacher should be asking God is, “Is there any reason you DON’T want me to go there? If I don’t hear from you explicitly that I’m not to go there, I’m going!” In other words, “I know the light is green, so I will go unless you explicitly give me a red light.” Think about this for a minute: If you know you are called to preach and you get an opportunity to preach, why WOULDN’T you want to take it? It might be a small church or a very imperfect church or both, but if you’re just starting out, you may not be so perfect yourself, either! (You will probably figure this out only in retrospect much later when you realize that you have become a much better preacher than you were when you started.) You need a place to preach and they can’t afford someone who expects $10,000 per night to fly in on his private jet with his entourage to do a service.
In light of what happened to Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), I would NOT recommend telling a pastor who called you, “I will have to look at my schedule to see when I have openings and get back to you” when you know full well that your schedule is completely empty! Trying to sound as if you have a big ministry when you don’t is deceptive and would make that pastor wonder about your integrity.
Another practical aspect of ministry is that if you know God has given you a specific green light to do something specific (pastor a certain church, travel with a certain minister, etc.), you should keep doing the last thing He told you to do until He says to do something else. What God DOESN’T say is as important as what He DOES say – if He hasn’t told you to move on, don’t! Too often people quit the ministry out of frustration or impatience when God never said to do something else because they’re just itchy to move on and be “promoted.”
God won’t promote you until you’re ready. You don’t get to second grade until you’ve passed first grade. You can’t get around that.
I’ll give you a real-life illustration. Someone used to work in the church nursery with me who would show up extremely late every time and complain that he was called to much better things than dealing with those crying babies and their disgusting dirty diapers, especially since the services could go three hours. He felt called to be a singer who would do Christian concerts. Things didn’t seem to be happening for him, and eventually he went across the country to get involved in a church that was just starting up. When he got to that church, he told the pastor that he was available to lead worship. The pastor informed him that he already had someone who could do that; his greatest need was someone to run the nursery! As I said, God won’t promote you until you’re ready to be promoted.
Don’t think that God has to speak in a booming audible voice or send an angel or a prophet to SAY something to you. Sometimes – MOST of the time – He speaks by just letting you “know things in your knower.” You’ll feel drawn to a certain thing, or you’ll feel a constant dissatisfaction with something you’ve been doing that you used to enjoy. So often, I hear people say, “God never speaks to me!” when He’s doing a lot of speaking on the inside – just not in the way that the people expect that God should speak to them. We often beg God to “talk louder” when the issue is that we need to get quieter so that we can hear His still small voice as Elijah did. God wasn’t “in” the wind, earthquake or fire – the spectacular stuff – but He spoke to Elijah quietly (1 Kings 19:11-12).
Another hurdle many of us have faced is fear of disappointing God. We hesitate to make any change or move out in a certain way because we’re afraid that we will make a mistake and let God down. Guess what? You WILL make mistakes. I have made mistakes. So has everyone else who has done anything significant in the Kingdom. Do you think Peter was perfect? God used him despite his many mistakes. The biggest mistake you can make is to do nothing when God has already said GO in the Bible. God LOVES you! He’s FOR you! He will NOT get mad at you if you attempt something great and make a mistake along the way. It beats becoming the world’s leading authority on doing nothing. If you mess up, Jesus has already paid the price for your mess. So don’t ever hold back because you don’t want to miss God. If you never operate in “green light” mode, you’ll never accomplish a lot of things that please God! He knows your heart.
Another related hindrance is a nagging feeling that you’re just not ready to step out and do anything. I understand that there is a preparation time for certain ministry assignments, and it’s usually a lot longer than we think it should be. But it is ALWAYS right to present the Word to people and lay hands on the sick and command disease to bow its knee at the name of Jesus. There’s never a good reason to wait to do that. The only valid reason to wait in Scripture was to be baptized with the Holy Spirit before you go out. But He’s been given to the Church already. If you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit, there isn’t any reason to wait. It’s not as if you’re going to get MORE power in the future. Where are you going to get more power than the Holy Spirit has?
You should realize that God cannot use the “better version of you” that will be around five years from now TODAY. God can only use the “TODAY” version of you TODAY. So let Him use you as you are now, and keep growing and learning!
If you have more invitations than you can handle, perhaps then you should seek God about which ones to take. But it will probably take some time to get to that point, and until then you should accept any reasonable opportunities you can get! Don’t wait for an explicit nudge from God. The light is green, so GO unless you hear otherwise! GO preach. GO lay hands on sick people. GO create opportunities if you don’t have one offered to you. GO get busy advancing the kingdom of God. He will work with you, confirming His word with accompanying signs (Mark 16:20).