Works:He’s not impressed

 

 

Works: He’s not impressed

 

You know we all have little scripts that we expect our lives to continue along. We will graduate High school, go to college, get a good job with benefits, find a great person to marry, have healthy children, see them grow up and be healthy well-adjusted Christian people who will marry healthy well-adjusted Christian people, etc. We have these expectations and we connect them to God in our hearts. After all we know He loves us, and wants the best for us, so it only seems logical.

What happens when life deviates from our scripts? What happens when the plans and expectations we have of God concerning our life are suddenly radically different? It is a horrible thing to have faith and trust in the Lord for something and then it doesn’t come to pass. What happens when our reality is not changed by prayer?

You ever throw a party or plan something special for someone and have it go horribly wrong? A few years ago, I wanted to start a small group. I went through the training, made a plan, sent out invites and the first night…no one showed up. I was so sure God was going to provide for this small group because it was all about God! Quickly I learned, just because something is good does not mean its God’s will or that He has to bless it. Just because something seems to line up with the principles of God, does not mean that it is His WILL or TIMING or even the WAY He wants it done.

You ever avoid asking for something because you were afraid they would say “No”? I have been notorious for that. I have been a “make it happen” kind of guy many times in the past. God is working on me in allowing God to change me into more of a “let it happen” kind of guy.

God is not some ambiguous Person a million miles away. He is not some amorphous blob of force in the universe. He calls us into relationship, and that relationship fundamentally is Creator to creation.

The Bible is one long story of God breaking into our realities. God is the initiator. Following Him does not mean asking Him to bless what we have set ourselves to do, but laying prostrate before the Lord and seeking His will.

There are times where we lack specific direction in life, and in those cases we make the best and wisest choices we can according to the principles found in His word. But we can get used to that and comfortable and stop seeking His specific will for us, and as a result we stop listening. We stop following and start leading. In effect we tell God to follow our actions and pour out His blessings upon them.

God is more concerned about how we respond to the journey, than whether or not we reach a destination. God is more concerned about forming the character of Christ within us who made Himself of no reputation, but took on the form of a slave.

Have you ever prayed for someone you care about to be healed, but then they got worse and died? Have you ever stepped out in faith with your finances in giving only to find not financial reward, but instead have more bills or even perhaps lose your job? What do you do? Stop believing? Stop praying for healing? Break your commitments? Do you turn away from the Lord and separate yourself from His presence?

This life is full of suffering. We experience it all the time, and when tragedy strikes we find ourselves looking upward and asking “why?” If we are going to live out a relevant faith to this world and even to ourselves, we must be willing to dig deeper than silly little answers that hold no comfort.

I have seen many people through the years including myself, when they slam head on into a wall that shakes them to the core of their being, they fall into the practice of trying to divide up their lives into sections and stuff God into one of those sections. We put up walls when we get hurt.

Men like to compartment their lives.  Kind of like an orange….we segregate the goodness (and not so good) into sections. The Lord wants to have preeminence in EVERY part of our lives. Our lives aren’t like oranges…it’s more like chocolate milk! You stir it all around until there’s no distinction between the milk and the chocolate. We need to stir our lives up so there is no distinction in our walk with Jesus.

We must learn to embrace God even when He says no, even when our expectations are dashed. He is the Lord! If we want to grow up and not just grow as a Christian we must learn to follow HIS lead.

God’s not impressed by your works, He just cares about you. He is more interested in the way you respond to the journey than whether or not you reach your point of destination. He is more interested in forming Christ within you, than in your works for Christ.