I’ve heard bad things happen in 3’s. I’m not superstitious, but I am also fully aware when the Poop Parade shows up in your life, things start to stink. You know, the Poop Parade. The Crap Circus. The Sh*t(aki) Mushrooms Show. It’s one thing after another, going wrong, falling apart, and piling up against you.

Why can’t things just go right for you? Why can’t life just calm down and be normal for a minute?

Ahhhhh, let me tell you why … God uses messes to make his masterpiece. And guess what Sis, you’re his masterpiece!

Some things simply grow better in the presence of crap. Some things only reach their full potential when the seemingly bad stuff is piled on high. Afterall, you do realize CRAP IS FERTILIZER, right?

Our family spent 1 year pretending to be farmers on a 200 acre hunting ranch in Arkansas. Occasionally the Poop Parade would show up and invade our land. Literally dump trucks full of chicken poop. One after another, loaded with the stinkiest, crappiest of crap you can imagine. And they would spread it all over our fields. And get this, that crap was requested. It was ordered. It was paid for!

The entire ranch would stink so bad you could hardly eat your breakfast. But eventually the smell would either pass, or you would just get used to it, and then you know what would happen? Yes, growth. Crazy, abundant, new growth. Our fields were transformed, and it was because of the Poop Parade a few weeks earlier.

Girl, could your life be in the process of being transformed right now? Look around. Has the Crap Circus invaded and you’ve been declared Ring Master? Is the Sh*t(aki) Show broadcasting live and you’re on center stage? The caca loaded dump trucks have arrived and they are dumping all over your life. Yip, seems to me you’re getting ready to GROW my sister!

I know you think you would have made the necessary changes without this crap, but the truth is, you wouldn’t have. Sometimes God has to smack us right on the forehead to get us to see the effects of what we’ve been doing and how we’ve been living. He has to wake us up, and God in all of his loving wisdom knows that girl isn’t waking up with a gentle nudge. It’s going to take a dump truck, and more than one!

This isn’t a punishment honey, this is preparation for your purpose. This is fertilization of the fields of your life. This mess is making a masterpiece. The Poop Parade marching through your house is not here to destroy you, it’s here to deliver you. Deliver you from what … from the easier, little life you would have settled for. Deliver you where … to your destiny! What is your destiny …. ahhhhh yes, a BIG Life!

The story of Joseph is one of my favorites. I love it so much because it perfectly shows the unfolding of God’s good plans in the middle of a Poop Parade that just wouldn’t seem to stop. If you know the story, then you know life was unfair for poor Joseph. First his brothers grow jealous of him and sell him off as a slave. He becomes a favored slave to his master, then the master’s crazy wife wants to hook up, and when Joseph refuses she claims rape and has him thrown in prison. He becomes a favored prisoner to the warden, then he is forgotten. Every time he gets a break, the next bad thing happens.

Joseph was a good man. He was faithful to his God. So why would God allow all of this to happen in his life? Why the continual struggle and set backs? Why the constant chaos and crap? Oh because, my friend, crap is fertilizer. All this bad stuff that was happening to Joseph was growing him into the man God destined him to be. It was allowed because it was aligned. Aligned with his future purpose.

Joseph had been set apart to become a leader. A leader that would save the lives of thousands, including his own brothers who had betrayed him. But to become that kind of leader stepping into that kind of purpose, there was a long preparation process. A process of dump trucks full of crap, after crap, after crap that created growth, upon growth, upon growth.

In his master’s house, he learned leadership and integrity. In prison, he gained wisdom and patience. None of it was wasted, every mess he found himself in was used to make him into the masterpiece God had designed.

Could you possibly believe the same is true for you?

I look back at the absolute messes I’ve found myself in the middle of. Whew girl, let me tell you, I’ve had some professional Poop Parades march through my life. I didn’t order them, I didn’t want them, I didn’t like them, but this is where I grew. This is where I learned how to be faithful. This is where I learned discipline. This is where I learned about priorities. This is where I learned what didn’t work. This is where I learned what I DIDN’T WANT. This is where I learned patience. This is where I learned to seek and find, ask and receive, knock and go on in, as well as where I learned to seek and feel lost, ask and be told no, knock and be okay with the door never opening.

When you come to the end of Joseph’s story, you see the growth created by all he has gone through. You see the leader he has become because of the crap he has walked through. Now he’s in a position to save lives. In a position to supply food for people who literally were going to starve without his help. And some of those people were the very people that called in the Poop Parade in the very beginning. They were the ones that started the downward spiral of events in his life. The individuals he had every right to hate forever. They were his brothers. The ones who had sold him into slavery because they were jealous of their father’s love for him.

And now, after slavery and imprisonment, after being sold and forgotten, after being accused and abused, Joseph is the masterpiece God created him to be and he stands before his brothers and he says in Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Yes, all that crap was intended for harm, but God used it as fertilizer. He used it to grow him into a man of integrity, forgiveness, patience, a wise leader. And Joseph saved them. He saved thousands of others in a time of desperation and poverty. God’s good intentions with all that was seemingly so bad.

What’s God growing you into? Here come the dump trucks with their piles of poop. Remember, it’s not a punishment. This is your fertilizer because God knows the potential within you that must be grown. He has good plans for you and the only way you will ever step fully into those good plans is to go through some crap. Not only go through it, but GROW through it!

Joseph was always being prepared. In a pit, in a palace and in a prison, he was being prepared. And you … well, you are being prepared too. Prepared for a purpose. Don’t grow pitiful. Don’t be bitter. This is where you get better.

As the Poop Parade marches on, you just keep growing!

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