His Work

Planning, prepping, list-making, errand-running seemed to characterize our month before setting off for Malawi.  Do we have enough snacks?  Is there room for more shoes?!  (NO, not a spare inch!)  These seemingly important details easily become the focus--shifting my eyes and heart away from living in the presence of God and joining Him in the work He is doing.  Because of where I’m looking, I buy into the idea that as long as we have the right activity books for the kids, the trip will surely be a success. 

Fretting over schedules, wanting my time to “count” and not just be spent entertaining kids, worrying I’ll not be able to carry out the work God has laid on my heart seems to characterize the focus of my thoughts during my first few days in Malawi.  Will the timing of the high schoolers’ final exams conflict with the Bible study sessions I want to do with them?  How will they receive the teaching I have to share?  Will anything I do have eternal, kingdom impact?  And yet again, my eyes are set on the temporal, and I believe the lie that if I can manage and be in charge of everything that it will be a success.  As if I, in my own strength, have any control over God carrying out his plans and purposes.  In reading “The Practice of the Presence of God,” I happened upon these words yesterday:

Because of this same trust in God’s care, when Brother Lawrence had some outside business to attend to, he never worried about it beforehand.  Rather, he found God would give him a picture as clear as a mirror image of exactly what to do at precisely the right moment.  He has acted in this way for quite some time, without being concerned about something ahead of time.  Before he had experienced God’s swift help in affairs, he had attempted to plan every detail, doing the job in his own strength.  Now, though, acting with child-like simplicity in God’s sight, he did everything for the love of God, thanking him for his guidance.  Everything he did passed calmly, in a way that held him close to the loving presence of God.  When any outside business unnecessarily diverted him from his communication with God, a little reminder came from the Lord that took possession of his soul, flooding it with the image of God.

Those words caused me to pause and evaluate the state of my heart and attitude.  “Planning every detail, doing the job in his own strength.”  That description often fits me to a T.  By operating in this way, I rob myself of the joy and peace that comes from allowing God to pave the way for what is HIS work to begin with!  My only aim should be that of living and breathing in communication with God.  No amount of planning, scheduling, or stressing will matter when I walk in my own strength.  If I show up to what God has called me to without Him at the forefront, it’s like I’m completely bankrupt, empty-handed.   And, I’ll be working on living out this same truth tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that…slowly chipping away at my natural bent toward grasping for control. 

              “I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that                      bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

             

              “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”