J. Grant Swank, Jr.
There
are those who are forever seeking to decipher the divine plan. What is
God doing with my life? How does this situation fit into the plan?
What should I do about that? Why did this drop into my day?
And so the questions continue for a lifetime. What fury.
It is not trying to figure out what God is doing with our days that should consume us at all. That is not our turf.
When
one reads the personages of Scripture, one realizes that over and over
God does this and that with a dedication which, at any one point in
time, would have not been clear to that disciple.
Take John the Baptist, for instance. He was the warrior for evangelism. He was even biologically related to the Messiah. He had grown up with Him.
Yet when John was sitting in
the dank prison cell
with rats about his feet, he told his followers to inquire of Jesus as
to Who exactly He was. In other words, John was trying to figure out
the identity of his kinsman as well as the plan of deity for His life's
work.
How close that sword blade came to John's psyche until
one day it sliced off his head. Now how was such apprehension and
final tragedy plugged into the "grand will of God"?
So
it may be in your life. You wonder why you are in such straits. You
have done your best. You have yielded your life for The Work. There
are others who seem "to get ahead" while you languish in the
dust--lost, tired, unrecognized.
Of course it is only in
your private thoughts that you permit your confusion. Public anguish
would be out of image for the happy-go-lucky evangelical of today.
However, there is such pain at times in wondering
what is happening with your
life.
The
short of it is this: What is God doing with these weary days of mine?
Why am I sitting in this jailhouse? Where did the rats come from? Is
this the Super Plan promised. In other words, Who are you Jesus--the
One you said you are or do we seek another?
Stop. Wrong track. Get off it.
The
right track is this: realize that since you are serf and He is King,
you have no right to know anything about an overall plan. That is the
trouble with westernized thinking. Each thinks he is the Chief
Executive Officer. No, not when it comes to the eternal Kingdom of the
Almighty God.
God is God. We are love slaves. He is in
charge--totally so. We take orders; He gives them. We bow down; He
commands. He knows what He is doing for the "over-all"; we simply
comply with the next directive.
Now when you size up life in those
terms, you are starting to get back on track.
Consequently,
that also brings you back to square-one regarding time. It is not your
prerogative to spy into the future regarding anything, especially your
personal grand scheme of things. The tomorrows are the property of God
alone. That is why you cannot get into them. He alone can get into
them.
As far as the past is concerned, you cannot get into
it either. As soon as last minute's time frame vaporized before you,
it left you for good. You will never return to a minute ago. It
likewise belongs to God alone. Make certain then that it is under the blood of Jesus Christ.
So
where does that leave you? Right now with this fleck of time. That's
all you have. And even that, you do not have in the sense of
ownership. It is on loan to you.
Why then are you fretting about your place in the
sun? Being a success? Catching up with the others? Making it? Discovering God's secret scope for your existence?
Cease
from such nonsense. It only yields more of the round-and-round of
worry, self-introspection for self's sake and eventual exhaustion of
soul.
Say to yourself: I do not own me. God owns me. His
blood bought me. I am not in charge of anything except my
consecration. Therefore, if my all is surrendered to the One in
Charge, then that is all that is necessary. This fleck of time will
fold into the next one and all of them strung together will eventually
yield a plan. All will add up to "the will of God" for my life.
The
bottom line then is this: you do not psyche out His will. When you
surrender moment-by-moment to Him, YOU BECOME HIS WILL.
Imagine that! What a thrill that is! That is the concept you
want to
implant in your head from here on out. When you surrender moment-by-moment to Him, YOU BECOME HIS WILL.
Your searching days are over. No more straining to figure out the divine hand. No more deciphering your biographical spectrum.
The journey ends and starts with total surrender to the Master--one moment at a time. This is His will. You become His will.
In that, you have come home. In that, you have peace. In that, you have joy: TO BE HIS WILL.