OK, I don’t know about you, but I am never one to often put the words “leisurely” and “faith” together. Yet, I read that very combination when I was reading this devotional I’ve been discussing the last couple of days.
If we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t connect “leisure” with “faith.” We work hard at faith – going to church, volunteering at church, dealing with all of the many situations that come up in life and then struggling through to trust God to take care of it (while we do our best to take care of it ourselves.) Does any of this sound familiar?
When I think of faith, I don’t think of leisure. Because when I think of leisure, I think of sitting on a chair by the pool, stretched out enjoying the sun with no worries, no efforts, no problems, no where to go and nothing to do. That’s leisure. Something I don’t ever really have time to experience!
And yet, when we talk about following God’s direction, I don’t think He really means for us to beat Him to the finish line. Life is not a race where I’m supposed to be competing against God. But we could look at it that way. We get our own opinions, our own thoughts about what to do, and we start following our own purposes, instead of God’s. (Click on Keep Reading to finish this post…)
Here’s what Oswald Chambers writes:
“A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God.”
How often do you trust the wits and wisdom of God? How often do you put your own in there?
See, I am often guilty of trusting that God has a plan, but then incorporating my own steps to follow that plan… but then it is no longer God’s plan, is it? Instead of looking at God’s direction as a target, a finish line, I use it as a starting block. But it should always stay in front of me, not behind me in the dust. And instead of thinking so often that this life is a race, I need to start thinking that this life is a journey and that there is simplicity in the journey when we fully put our trust in God.
Exchanging my wits for His. Exchanging my desires for His own. Waiting on His timing, and not running ahead with my own timing in mind.
That is the ever-present challenge.
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