Ephesians 3: 8 God’s Word Translation
I am the least of all God’s people. Yet, God showed me his kindness by allowing me to spread the Good News of the immeasurable wealth of Christ to people who are not Jewish.
I have now taken this title from Paul, being the least of God’s people. Yet it is to your advantage that I am so flawed because in my weakness, God shows His strength and He then passes on the lesson through my experience so that you won’t make all of the mistakes that I do and have.
Recently you were with me as I learned to allow God to be the master of my calendar, schedule and appointments rather than allowing my schedule and obligations to rule me. He taught me to begin my day turning my face to Him and connecting with Him in my heart the very first thing. So I began giving my day and my schedule to the Lord before I even picked up my devotionals. Wow! What freedom that granted me and I found that I was getting everything done when I began it in this grace that He has given.
However, before many weeks passed I found myself in a new struggle of my creation. I am trying to lose weight, improve my diet and my health for the long haul. I have a coach who is helping me and together she and I set some objectives. Everything clicked along fine for about 4 weeks. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but there were changes taking place, improvements made and that was the main thing. Then all of a sudden I hit a wall and while I mean that metaphorically I will also say that I felt this wall. All of a sudden I was completely run down and spent. Monday’s exercise that week was challenging though I had done tougher workouts in previous weeks. My eating habits began to deteriorate and my body began to hurt. Every old sports injury reared its ugly head to torment me. It was a bad week. I just couldn’t seem to do anything right and I did not have the strength inside me to fight back. I was bankrupt physically, mental and emotionally.
It took me a couple of days to sort out what had gone so wrong but finally the light bulb came on. Although I had prayed about this project, I was really proceeding through it in my own strength. Well, my strength gave out. Thank God for weakness because that is when He came in. Finally I was in a place to hear Him. Once my tank was empty I listened to Him and He gave me plenty of guidance. Immediately things began to improve and I really do mean immediately. The old injuries began to recede back into the past where they belong. My eating habits improved without any real effort on my part and my exercise changed abruptly. I had more strength in my body and just “knew” the right things to do.
If we would begin every project by giving it over to God and letting Him be the project manager then we would find life so much easier. One of the interesting lessons in here is that simply praying about a matter is so not the same as giving Him control. I don’t just want to ask for His help. I want to do it with Him, through Him. Philippians 4: 13 says, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Interestingly enough it does NOT read, “I can do all things once I have prayed about them.” We need to learn to yield the whole project to His guidance and strength. Then we shall have good success.
