Trust that God knows what He is doing and be prepared to follow His lead.
With the start of October, it felt appropriate to exhale together today as we enter Fall.
Morning temps below 90 (if you live in Texas, like me) and the anticipation of all the cheer this quarter of the year brings.
The last two months I have written weekly devotionals on themes of patience and hope. Going into this month I felt a stirring to let the Holy Spirit prompt each week as it comes without a greater theme, which, if you know me, is an act of obedience in itself—ha.
As I opened my Bible this morning, I was drawn to James. James 4:13–15 in particular. The NIV translation reads: Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
God created us to live a life of abundant peace and in His prosperity (the ways He blesses us in accordance with His will, in His time, in the exact way He knows we need) within the sufficiency of a day. So many of us (probably all of us, honestly) live stretched desperately thin because we linger in thoughts of regret or other thoughts of past days and longing to understand what’s to come. Such thoughts take up our God-given time and our God-given energy that was intended for this moment, today.
What is God asking me to do now in obedience? What is the thing in front of me today that I can steward with excellence?
We were not created to hold the past and the future in our prone-to-overthink minds. God created us for TODAY. He gave us the constraints of time to live within and He Himself lives outside of them. He is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). He moves outside of time, outside of possibility, outside of earthly understanding. That’s who He is when we trust Him to be. Trusting Him to be who He is requires us to live for today, with what is in front of us. Not tomorrow. Not yesterday. Being present today, in His presence, is what He asks of us.
God, give us eyes to see our focus for today, trusting we will hear you when you ask us to move and when you ask us to stay. Thank you that you hold all things in your perfect hands and that you care so deeply for us. Amen.
God gives strength and He gives blessing. God gives peace and He sustains.
Britt Goff #wheatfulwednesday