Lessons Learned as a Daughter of the King

Chapter 8 Saving the Best for Last Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now. —John 2:10 I hated PE class as a kid. It was the most dreaded period of the day. Beyond repugnant locker rooms, the awkwardness of puberty, and those fashion-forward PE uniforms, what I hated most about this portion of the day was when it was time to split up into teams. The routine was the same—the coach would choose two captains who held the fate of every player anxiously waiting to be chosen for either team. This part of the day always carried so much anxiety for me as a child because not only was I not as athletic as my peers, nor possessed the speed and agility that was desired, but I also wore glasses. This made sports like basketball, volleyball, and basically any other team sport incredibly problematic because without my glasses, I was literally blind. I couldn’t catch either, which didn’t help the situation. And so, the moment of dread would begin. As both captains began calling out their preferred teammates, I waited and waited. I can remember a little piece of my heart and my delicate self-esteem as a young child deflate as I watched other boys and girls have their names called with such excitement. They were noticed and acknowledged for their abilities and for what they could bring to the team; they were wanted. Ten painstaking minutes later, I and another child remained in the pool of remaining players before another thrilling game of intramural basketball. And as always, I would hang my little head a little lower when my name was called last with the comment, “I guess we’ll take Larissa. She’s the last pick.” As a little girl, “being the last pick” always had a negative connotation in my young mind. It meant that being “chosen last” meant that you were less desirable, the afterthought, or a last resort. When the season came to begin thinking about dating and relationships, I found myself going back to those moments in PE class when it appeared that I was the perpetual “last choice” or no one’s choice at all. As I watched close friends and family marry the man of their dreams, or hold their firstborn child in their arms, my heart would often whisper to the Lord, “Does anyone want me on their team?” The enemy, the adversary of my soul, was very good at making me feel that I was left on a shelf and forgotten. He uses this cunning strategy against many daughters of the King who are waiting on their turn for desires of their hearts to come to pass. The common lie he loves to whisper is, “God is blessing everybody but you,” coupled with, “Perhaps you are the problem. It’s something about you that others just don’t seem to want.” But guess what? He is a liar. In fact, he is the father of all lies. Daughter of the Most High God, shift your perspective from the lie to what our Father, the King, has said to be true about you. Perhaps it appears that you are stuck on a shelf, forgotten, and overlooked. Perhaps your friends or your family can’t seem to understand why you are “stuck on the sidelines” as you wait for God’s promises to become a reality in your life. Although “last pick” is often seen as a defeat in the natural realm, we as daughters of the King have spiritual insight into a bigger ball game in the spiritual realm. According to my King, Jesus saves the best for last! Even though I’ve been to more weddings than years I’ve been alive, I absolutely love weddings. It always makes my heart smile when I remember that the first miracle that Jesus performed was at a wedding. However, this wedding was an opportunity for Jesus to reverse the culture. The miracle performed at this wedding proved that Jesus really does save the best for last! “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, ‘They have no wine.’” This major faux pas could not have happened at a worse time. Imagine that on one of the biggest days of your life, your wedding day, the wine, a major staple for celebrations in the ancient East, runs out! Because hospitality was such an important and integral part of ancient Eastern culture, running out of wine would have been both humiliating and devastating to this newlywed couple. Moreover, due to the natural fermentation process for grapes to turn into wine, there would not have been enough time to produce the quality wine that most masters of ceremonies at weddings in ancient Israel would serve at the beginning. But I love how Jesus’s first miracle, at a wedding of all places, shows us that Jesus is the Redeemer of time! Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When the jars had been filled, he said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master of ceremonies.” So the servants followed his instructions. When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!”