Willingto BeProven

Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

Exodus 16:4

Upon reading this today I realized how much we need to step out into situations that only God can handle, that only He is our provider. We are so caught up in meeting our own needs that we never come close to this blessed place, the place where God can prove us.

If we won't even dare take the test, can we dare to declare that we have passed the test? Our preoccupation with meeting our own needs continually tempers our obedience to what the Lord is calling us to do. This should not be.

Prove us, Lord!

FollowingGod’sPlan for You—Pt. II

In “Following God’s Plan for You”, I quoted Oswald Chambers and spoke of how important it is to just wait. Today, I began thinking of how to put this in brass tack real and simple terms.

Why the need to do so? Because, as I mentioned in the original post, it seems that waiting is the most difficult thing for us to do. We would often rather suffer while doing something than to simply do nothing. This, unfortunately, is the cause of much misery and missing of what God truly has for us.

And so, I believe this saying to be faithful, true, and worthy of all acceptance:

If you have no definite sense that you are explicitly out of God’s will where you are or in what you are doing, seek not to do anything, but wait.

If you hear His voice, then sure, do what He desires; but do not presume to do anything if you do not explicitly know it is God’s initiative behind it.

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently who had not long ago struggled with why things were going so slowly in the new thing that he knew the Lord had called him to do. I was happy that I could look him in the eye and let him know that by being patient and waiting, even within the doing of the Lord’s known will, that he was being a witness in a way that was impressing those around him multiple times more than any word he could have wished to have spoken.

Related:
• Following God’s Plan for You
• Oswald Chambers
• 

Note: This was originally published on my old blog, February 19, 2008.

FollowingGod’sPlan for You

When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait.

Oswald Chambers
My Utmost For His Highest
January 4th

If you have a copy of this devotional lying around, please pick it up and read the entry for January 4th. If you do not, go here and read it online.

I bring your attention to it because it lines up with my own experience of God’s leading in my life, and how utterly important it is to be patient and wait on the Lord. If you read, you’ll find that not only when we don’t know what God’s will is, but especially when we do, that even then we are ill advised to jump into action. There is a time for knowing, and there is a time for doing. These are two distinct steps to fulfilling God’s will for our lives, because not only must we do what God wants, but we must do what God wants God’s way. We must do what God wants God’s way and at God’s time. We must do what God wants in God’s way at God’s time and with God’s heart. And while these four distinct steps overlap each other, they are yet distinct and capable of omission one or all. The right thing, in the right way, at the right time, and with the right heart. To be truly Christ-like we must have all four operating in everything we presume to be doing as led of the Lord, or we are not being led of Him, at least not fully.

Of all that we do, it seems that waiting taxes us the most. I believe that, for us, waiting is a cross we must bear, for our flesh is what cries out when it cannot be active to attain some sort of gratification. What is death but a ceasing? When we wait, we cease. When we wait, we exercise our faith! Blessed paradox. Jn. 12:24. Faith is death to our flesh, but life to our spirit.

Related:
• Oswald Chambers
• My Utmost For His Highest
• 

Note: This was originally published on my old blog, January 4, 2008