GETTING STUCK INTO IT!
Are you busy or well-occupied? Are you pursuing personal achievement goals, or responding to the good to which God has called you?
Why might these questions be important? Perhaps it is because sometimes we make being ‘soooo busy’ a badge of honour. My suspicion is that we play those kinds of mind gymnastics because we are very focused on constantly comparing ourselves with others.
The other complication for us is that we live in a world which constantly tells us, ‘We are our own’, and therefore, ‘We can fix it,’ IF only we know the right method. This is at times ironic, because many of us are also told that our problems are because of our families, and because of our genetics…. But that is a story for another time.
Despite this blaming of others for our personal problems and imperfections, we are still encouraged to follow certain programmed steps to fix our difficulties and to personally flourish. That is, the message we get is that improvement is a matter of having the best technique. Such suggestions reduce our heart-journey before God to being a procedural issue.
The Apostle Paul had much more God-focussed and practical wisdom:
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. [Galatians 6:4-1, The Message]
Such an exhortation to live within the good work we have been given sits well within Paul’s other reminders – we are saved by grace through faith to do the good God has prepared for us in advance (Ephesians 2:8-10); and that when we help others with whatever gifts we have, we are spreading God’s grace around (1 Peter 4:10-11).
That is why anything good that we do is not a solo effort – it is God’s gift in us, it is God’s strength that enables us, and it is God’s calling that focusses us. It is God in and through us. It is His work.
That is more than enough. As Peterson put it above, let’s get on doing ‘our creative best’, and let’s on with trusting God. Now that is peace…
Regards,
Stephen J Fyson