Sermon Illustration: Stay in Your Lane!

When I think of Arby’s I think of two things: One, I think of delicious and juicy roast beef sandwiches, baptized in their amazing sauce. Two, I think of the guy’s voice in their commercials who says, “Arby’s! We Have . . . THE MEATS!” Arby’s is known for, and good at, piling lots of meat on a sandwich. We need Arby’s to be good at this.

This is why I was beyond less than enthused when I learned Arby’s was advertising a line of pizzas and pizza sandwiches. The tag line in the commercial was, “Arby’s! We Have. . . THE PIZZA!” No, Arby’s. No! We don’t need you to try pizza. We don’t need you to get into the pizza business. Papa John’s and Pizza Hut and Little Caesar’s and DiGiorno and 50 other companies are good at pizza. We need you to be good at roast beef sandwiches! Arby’s, we need you to STAY IN YOUR LANE!!!!

We do the exact same thing. We know what we are good at. We know how we are wired. We know what God has called us to do. We know what He has equipped us to do. Yet, so often we try to please someone else. We try to do something we think would bring us more clout or status or points. We get out of our lane, attempting something we are awful at (and someone else God has made is so much better at), and do a poor job and are miserable. God made you the way He wants you to be. He designed you and gifted you and anointed you equipped you for a purpose. He Himself wants you to be the best version of who He made YOU to be!

We need you to stay in your lane.

I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet. But I predict Arby’s won’t be in the pizza business very long. And we don’t need them to. We need them to be good at roast beef sandwiches.

Stay in your lane.

**I first got this thought after seeing a post by Jon Acuff on his Instagram account.