Receiving Instead of Achieving

“After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” Gal. 3:3.

After my 5 year service as caregiver with sick family members I found myself at a loss for what God had in store for me next.  Since the beginning of 2013 God has been very illusive in sharing His plan with me.  He has provided mere bread crumbs for His vision leaving a trail for me .  I have hungrily followed these crumbs in search of the complete filling.  I have involved myself in a ministry that I know came from God but still I’m walking in its shadows instead of its light.  I have even had two exchanges with God through dreams…visions…apparitions…whatever you wish to call them.  He communicated with me through His spirit and scripture that He was orchestrating everything to connect my different areas of service together.  Even after that powerful experience I found myself the other day considering that I should go look for a job and be done with it.  I thought of several companies that I could contact to attain employment.  I remember feeling a spirit of impatience and resolve that I would give it a little more time then apply for some jobs.  What had I done?  I had taken control of God’s plan for me and applied my human effort.  What began with allowing the Spirit to lead me morphed into meddling in my own ideas.

If we will just be still and know that God is God, He will speak to us in ways our spirit recognizes.  Any effort that comes from panic or impatience is our attempt to attain goals by human effort.  ‘Don’t try to make God speak.  Let Him speak.  He wants to, and He will when the time is right.  We don’t need to put words in God’s mouth.  Whatever the task at hand, it will not come down to achieving; it will come down to receiving’ Children of the Day, Beth Moore, p. 156. That phrase certainly resonates with me this morning…it will come down to receiving, not achieving.  My encounters with God always give me a sense of receiving something from Him.  In our achieving we will miss out on these encounters.  I must wait on His timing, His wisdom and His power to energize the things for which He has called me.  God has called each of us to a ministry in this world and we are all able to encounter God through His spirit and Scripture to follow His bread crumbs in our calling. 

'Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead…we pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something’ 2 Thessalonians 1:11.