Recalculate - A Series on the Data You Use to Chart Your Life
More specifically, today's sermon is, Designed to Need Him.
We might think our lives are going pretty good; but, we all can stand some tweaking. Our path to God isn't just dependent on big "recalculations" (like conversion) but also on the small shifts in direction we all need to make.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from youwhen I was made in the secret place,when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in yourbook before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16
We are designed for God - that is God's plan - in my life, it is God's plan, not mine. My daily morning prayer should be to seek God's plan. God's answer is to walk with Him and let Him lead.
In Exodus 33, God tells Moses that His presence will give us rest. My morning meditation also stresses the need for rest.
God will never give us an assignment where He's not leading. His presence goes with us and gives us rest.
We are designed to need God in every area of our lives. If things are going badly, it's because we aren't allowing God to lead us. I am not meant to succeed at work, at parenting, at life without God - I am designed to need God. This is why I feel so hollow, so fragile, so stressed.
God wants and initiates that intimacy with us. The whole of Hebrew scripture is God pursuing us to enter into an intimate, face-to-face relationship with us.
Forgiveness opens up the gift of His continued presence. He gave up everything to be close to us. God wants that intimacy. Jesus died for it.
God desires to be present in our lives more than we can ever imagine!
God's presence is no longer in a fiery pillar - it is now in us - and through us, God interacts with the World.
God also recalculates to get us back on track when we take the wrong turn. We recalculate by making time to be with God and realize God's presence in our lives.
...surely I am with you always, to the very end if the age.
Matthew 28:20
"God also recalculates to get us back on track when we take the wrong turn. We recalculate by making time to be with God and realize God's presence in our lives."
ReplyDeleteI suspect that recalculating is not always pleasant...but then, neither is making a U-turn in heavy traffic. But its necessary to get back on track, to be headed in the right direction.
I must say, that part about feeling hollow, fragile, stressed...really resonated with me. Surely I have fallen into the all-too- common mistake of 'going ahead in my own strength,' which in my case is always laughably small anyway.