Driving Force

10/29/2006

The word for this week in my life is “Compel.” I don’t know exactly why, I just know that it has been on my heart…so here we go…are you ready?

As I begin this next season of life, being without an official job so to speak, what do I do with each day I’m given now?
What do you do with each day you’re given?
Do we think about it, or do we just do it?
What is the driving force behind all the decisions we make on any given day?

In talking with a friend just the other day, I was trying to explain to her how my desire right now is to get up and ask God what I should do each day. This sort of had her stumped, and try as she might, she had to admit that in her questioning me about this she had a sort of derogative tone… She wondered if I was even going to ask God if I should clean the house? Well…yes, I would even listen for God’s direction in that. She wondered about those who have to go to work each day? Well, I had to admit that while I was working, God never told me to call in sick and stay home. If we were required to be on a job right now, as many are, would God really tell any of us not to go…barring extenuating circumstances of course? All this makes for an interesting discussion, but what if we truly did apply it to our lives every day?

I remember back when we were going through our home, getting rid of so many things, boxing up other things, scaling down so we could live in an RV…the “mountain” before us seemed huge. The task at hand was overwhelming, and yet each day I would ask God what I should do, and it seemed He would gently put a room on my heart and I would tackle it. Room by room, the house got done and the mountain was sorted through. So yes, why would God not put it on our heart when it is time to clean, or do the laundry, or visit a friend, or volunteer on a Sunday, or make a phone call? If He truly does know and care about each detail of our lives, why should we not ask Him how we should spend each day?

The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.
Psalm 37:23 (NLT)

I recently made a trip with a friend and she had lots to do before she could leave town. Admittedly, she is a “Martha.” Which in her life means, she lives by to-do lists and a busy schedule and lots of activities that fill her days. In getting ready for this trip, she too was at a place in her life where she wanted to begin to experience more of God in her every day--and instead of making a list of all that she had to do before leaving this time, she prayed and asked God what she should do. And guess what? It worked! He took her through all the steps to get her ready to hit the road, without a list! And believe me, she didn’t miss a detail! She even had lunch packed for us, drinks, the car filled with gas and washed, music selected and everything else we would need for the journey!

Why would we not trust God with the details of each day when He already knows where we are going, what we will be needing, and what unexpected things we might experience along the way?

Many have asked what I will be doing now that I have all this free time. I didn’t really have a good answer until just the other night after attending a talk on, “Enjoying the Presence of God.” One of the questions to be answered that night, with someone sitting next to us, was, “When was the last time you practiced the presence of God during a conversation with someone?”

What, you might ask, does this look/sound like? Well, just that day I had experienced a conversation that was very challenging, and during the conversation I spent time praying as well as listening…I was asking God for guidance in my response to some of the things being talked about. It was God’s perfect timing to be able to engage in a conversation about this question later that evening. I had “practiced the presence of God” earlier that day so that my words would be bold yet loving, truth-filled yet not offensive. It worked wonderfully and no argument was had, peace reigned even when almost complete disagreement was involved.

So, in all of this, when asked yet again when the evening was over what I would be doing with my free time, it seemed I finally had the perfect answer!

“I’m going to be practicing the presence of God!”

This is challenging, because I believe it can never be perfected on this earth. Each day with prayer we can continually move in the direction of our Lord, we can come to know Him more and learn to listen to His gentle whispers with greater clarity, but we still cannot know what it will be like to stand in His presence and see Him face to face. We cannot know what it will be like to not have the phone ringing, the dog barking, the baby crying, the disturbances of the day, and the constant nagging from the enemy distracting us with all the things “we should” be doing as he tries to drag us away from an intimate relationship with the One who loves us most.

But, still, we are called in God’s direction continually, and His desire for us is to rest in His will for our lives and follow wherever He leads. It is the best way for us to live, and yet we find it so, so difficult to do…

The definition for the word “Compel” is: To cause (a person or thing) to act or move in spite of resistance.

Some of the antonyms (A word having a meaning opposite to that of another word) for “compel” are to block, check, delay, deter, hinder, impede, obstruct, stop.

So why do I think God has placed the word “compel” on my heart this past week? It’s now coming to me…I believe He wants all of us to move in His direction, act upon His will…in spite of the resistance we experience. Instead of just plowing into each day with our list of “to do’s,” our Lord would like us to give Him some thought, to ask His advice, to embrace His way of being in this world instead of our way of doing. He’d like us to think about why we do what we do, and even deeper still, He wants to know if we will give up doing what He’s not asking us to do?

“No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway… I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind… Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 8:18b, 19, 22, 23a, 24b, 25a (NLT)

“…at war with my mind…”
Who will free us from that?
Jesus Christ our Lord!

If the enemy, Satan, can keep us occupied in the battle of busyness of life each day, we will miss the peace being offered by our Lord. If we are not willing to raise the white flag of surrender and submit to our Master and His plan for our lives, we will be marching to the beat of our enemy, and it will wear us out.

“So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he'll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life.” James 4:7-8 (Message Bible)

The enemy would like to block our way to peace, deter us from hearing our Lord, stop us at checkpoints where we will question and doubt our Lord thus hindering our progress toward a confident faith. The enemy would like to impede God’s path to joy, obstruct our view of our Heavenly Home, stop us from getting any rest along the way and delay any growth in our relationship with our Lord and others in the body of Christ while we are on this earth.

In Psalm 40:8, it says, “I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your law is written on my heart.”

I think we make following our Lord through each day of our life more complicated than it is--with a good dose of help from our enemy. In talking with my friend about asking God what to do each day, she told me she was making a birthday cake. Now, of course we can do that on our own, but do we really? As believers in Jesus Christ, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, we may not even realize most times that God is directing what we do each day. As I heard it said at the talk on “Enjoying the Presence of God,” there is such a thing as accidental obedience. I don’t know if the word “accidental” properly describes it sometimes, but even in making a birthday cake for someone, isn’t that an act of love? Isn’t that a choice we make to honor someone and bless them? And who puts the thought to make that cake on our heart that morning? Isn’t it really our Lord? His law of love is written on our hearts and we can follow it through our days, sometimes without even being aware of where those thoughts came from.

It isn’t all that hard. Perhaps the hard part is being God conscious enough to realize it’s of Him and not us? To realize that He is the Driving Force behind all that we do when what we do comes out of a heart of love. Maybe practicing the presence of God is really that simple.

“My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”
Psalm 28:8 (NLT)

The difficulty may arise when we are bombarded with thoughts in our day about what we need to do…when the “list” is long and the time is short. What would our Lord say then? I believe He says, “Come and talk with me.”
Will we respond, “Lord, I am coming.”
Or will we respond, “Lord, I’m too busy right now to talk with You.”

If we say we are too busy and hurry on our way, the burden eventually becomes too much because we are no longer allowing God to direct our steps. We have stepped into the enemy’s camp and we are following his commands! Unsettling thought, isn’t it? The enemy’s backpack of things to do is usually too heavy for us.

Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd. He says in John 10:3-5, “…the sheep hear his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they recognize his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t recognize his voice.” He goes on to say in verses 9-10, “Wherever they go, they will find green pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.”

Recently I heard about a young person who is having some emotional/psychological issues. Besides counseling and I’m sure lots of prayer from the family and friends, this family has made decisions to slow down their life, to turn the TV off, to have dinner together each evening…and do you know what? It is helping. What a concept, huh? Who do we think speeds our lives up to the point that we start to wear out emotionally, physically, psychologically and especially spiritually? Our great enemy, Satan. What a great way to steal, kill and destroy our lives. Keep us running, keep us busy doing all the things we think we need to be doing when it could be as simple as saying, “Lord, I am coming. What would You have me do today?”

But, but, but…how will anything get done?

To answer this, let me quote one of my new favorite authors, Hannah Whitall Smith from her book, “The God of All comfort.”

Ah, yes, this is the trouble. Our faith is not simple enough to take Him at His word, but we must need add all sorts of “buts” and “ifs” of our own; and obscure the sunshine of his love with clouds of our own imagining. If we but only knew the things which belong to our peace, how quickly we would throw aside every “if” and “but” of unbelief, and how rapturously we would plunge ourselves headlong into an unquestioning faith in all that he has told us of His almighty and never failing love and care!

But you may ask me, if all this is true of the Shepherd, what is the part of the sheep?

The part of the sheep is very simple. It is only to trust and follow. The Shepherd does all the rest. He leads the sheep by the right way. He chooses their paths for them, and sees that those paths are paths where the sheep can walk in safety. When He putteth forth His sheep, He goeth before them. The sheep have none of the planning to do, none of the decisions to make, none of the forethought or wisdom to exercise; they have absolutely nothing to do but to trust themselves entirely to the care of the good Shepherd, and to follow Him whithersoever He leads. It is very simple. There is nothing complicated in trusting, when the One we are called upon to trust is absolutely trustworthy; and nothing complicated in obedience, when we have perfect confidence in the power we are obeying.

Okay then, do we believe God is absolutely trustworthy?
And do we have perfect confidence in His power?
If we say we do, let’s give it a try!

Hannah Smith writes, There is absolutely only one thing that can hinder Him, and that is, if the sheep will not trust Him and refuse to let Him take care of them…No sheep is so silly as to act in this way, but we human beings, who are so much wiser than the sheep, do it continually…Our interference hinders His working. Spiritual forces cannot work while earthly forces are active.

The choice is ours to make, really it is…we can choose a hectic life filled with things God never asked us to do in a day, or we can follow our Good Shepherd through each day and live a peaceful existence while still accomplishing plenty! This does not mean that our lives won’t be full, it just means that our lives won’t be overly busy or stressed by being out of God’s design for our day.

To be busy, in the enemy’s camp, as I’ve heard it explained is:
Being
Under
Satan’s
Yoke.
That is not the life God wants for His children. This should only be the life the children of this world live because they should be the only ones listening to the voice of a stranger who wants to destroy their lives one day at a time--and they are allowing it because they don’t know any better yet.

And speaking of children…while I have been writing this I have been taking care of my little grandson, Jackson, who is six months old. He was in God’s design for my day while his parents rebuild their kitchen, and I knew it, but I also felt compelled to write today… how would the two be accomplished? It seemed an impossibility. It obviously was not!

Today, Jackson needed some extra TLC. He needed more food than usual, more holding than usual, and also more sleep than usual. He must have been going through a growth spurt! It seemed he was going to be fussy and the writing would simply have to wait, but instead Jackson showed me exactly what I was writing about today…how to rest in the arms of another and be comforted instead of fighting what was needed most. When he was hungry, he ate, and I fed him whenever he required it, even if it was more than normal. When he was tired, he slept, even if he had just had a nap. He would wake up to eat, then fall back to sleep again. When it came time to take him back home, he was sound asleep so we waited while I continued to write and he continued to sleep. When he finally woke up, he was as happy as he could be! The day had been a total success to him! He had been loved, fed and changed, while getting lots of rest. That’s what he needed today. It was just what God ordered for his day, and he complied with it! How many times do we miss that as adults? We rarely get the rest we need…because we’re all grown up now…

The day had also been a total success to me! I had loved Jackson, fed him, and changed him, while also getting done the writing God had put upon my heart to do today. One did not conflict with the other because God’s plan is a plan of peace. I knew what God was asking of me today in taking care of Jackson, but I could have made my own plans and I could have missed out on so much. I could have missed the joy of being with my grandson, thinking I needed to write instead--or I could have missed the joy of writing by getting “writer’s block” because of my disobedience and doing what I thought I needed to be doing instead of caring for Jackson. Either way, I would have missed out, and Jackson then might have spent a fussy day being in the middle of a kitchen remodel. Instead, we both ended the day on a happy note!

We think we know what’s best, and God simply says, “Listen to my voice. I will show you the best way to go. Follow it…you will never be disappointed.”

Everything we need to get done will get done, just maybe not today. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe God will call someone alongside of us to help us do it, or maybe we can do two things at the same time that we never thought would be possible…we won’t know the best plan for our day until we give God a chance to work out the details, while we wait upon Him.

Spiritual forces cannot work while earthly forces are active.

Let’s give God a chance to work in our lives!
He is with us every day, let’s get used to it!
Let’s listen for His voice of instruction!
It will be awesome!

“David son of Jesse is a man after my own heart,
for he will do everything I want him to.”
Acts. 13:22 (NLT)

Practicing His Presence,
Diane