Wait, Trust, Follow, Expect
When a train goes through a tunnel and it
gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and
trust the engineer. Corrie Ten Boom
What does fulfillment mean? According to the dictionary fulfillment means
“to develop the full potential of something or to carry out an obligation.”
Do you fulfill the purpose of why God placed
you on earth? This is one of the hardest
things for us to learn because our very nature and the world around us teach us
to be self-serving instead of what I call “other-serving.”
If we are ever to reach our full potential on
earth it is necessary to let go. I would
compare this to driving while blindfolded.
That is exactly what it feels like when we release our need to control
every situation and allow God to work.
It means we have to follow God’s lead even when we don’t know where we
are going. In a devotional by Rick
Warren he says it involves “Waiting, Trusting, Following and Expecting.”
This is extremely difficult in a world that
teaches us to be self-reliant. In other
words if I don’t look out for myself, no one else will. The opposite is true if we rely on God
instead of ourselves.
I have a tendency to think that I am in
control. When I start thinking this way
I push God aside and step out, not in faith, but in thinking that I can do it
on my own.
If I am not able to wait on God and his timing then I am probably going to miss out on
a lot of blessings. If I don’t trust that He knows what is best for
me, then I will miss the opportunity to learn wisdom even during trials. The majority of the time we don’t want to be followers. Why should we follow God without knowing
where we will end up? It is like jumping
off a cliff with no parachute. If I am not willing to trust that God has my best interest in mind even when it doesn’t
make sense, then I have missed the point entirely. This one is really
important. Too many times we don’t expect
God to work in our lives. We
halfheartedly ask for God’s guidance or blessing, fully expecting that He will
not come through for us.
We become self-defeating when we learn to
depend only on ourselves to get us out of the jams of life. One of my favorite verses is Proverbs
3:4-6. It says trust the Lord, lean not
on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will direct
your paths. Notice it doesn’t say, only trust Him when you
can’t handle the circumstance, or lean on Him only when you’ve already resolved
it, or acknowledge Him when you feel like it and finally let Him direct your
path when all else fails. If we are to
ever feel the peace that surpasses all understanding, we should focus our
thoughts on God and wait, follow, trust and expect Him to work for our good.
Prayer for the Day:
Heavenly Father, I am guilty of lacking patience when it comes to waiting for
You to work in my life. I take “You” out
of the equation and replace it with “me” and that is when I become like a train
wreck waiting to happen. If I follow
You, trust and expect that You will respond, that is when I can be a total
peace in my life because then I am not depending on my feeble attempts to run
my life.
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