His Terms, His Timetable

As I was spending time with God this morning I was wrestling with the following thought: we follow God on His terms and on His timetable and not ours. It's His yoke and not ours that He allows us to take upon ourselves. We are invited to submit to His plan and His way. So many times when we look at our lives it is filled with a frenzy of 'Christian' activity but the end result is that we are completely frazzled and weary and have little or no true fruit to show for it. Our job is to sit and hear God's voice and to simply say 'Yes, Lord' and follow Him. He has His plan and His will and He is working all over the world right now and He breaks into our world and invites us to join Him. It will involve altering my plans and my dreams and my to do list if I want to be a part of what He is doing.

If your boss comes in on a Monday afternoon and says, 'I need you to do this for me.' You dont' say 'Hey, I'd love to but I already have my afternoon planned out, sorry.' No, if you want to keep your job you say, 'yes, sir I'll get right on that.' His request trumps whatever plans you had made because he's the boss and you're not. It should be the same way with God. In Numbers 13-14 Israel rebelled against God at Kadesh-Barnea and refused to believe that God would hand over the Canaanites to them and give them the promised land. So God judged them for 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Right after the judgment was given they decided they had changed their minds and went up against the Canaanites anyway. Well, they were of course completely defeated because they went in their own strength and God was not with them. They had missed their window of opportunity to obey God. God speaks and we have a window of time to follow Him that will pass us by. Everyday we need to be ready like Isaiah with a 'Here am I Lord, send me' attitude to follow Him on His terms and on His timetable not ours.

The kids enjoyed a great view from Derric French's shoulders as we ran into Stephanie and Derric at the Christian Academy football game on Friday night. Joshua acted like he was on a date with one of his classmates as they sat together and 'watched the game', she laughed at all his corny jokes, he (dad) bought her some cookies that they split (famous amos), and then she played hard to get as she ran all around the bleachers and he chased her. Yeah, I think he's got it bad. Emily also got quite a workout as she played the international kids game of 'tag' all over the playground and got lots of hangtime in with her buddy, Connor.