Neither left, nor right – Deeper

“People have always misunderstood God’s mission. For it is always to call people out from a land of bondage into a land of freedom. To help people escape from their won forms of slavery; to help his people exodus into a land he promised them.” – J. M. Doss

As we contemplate the will of God in our lives, there are a multiple of ideas which can come to conflict with the understanding and mission of the Father. We know that Christ called us to the greatest commandment of loving God, and then to love others. We have been told that, “pure and undefiled religion is service to the widows and the poor.” But when we try to understand our current position or the implications of the future, we tend to focus less on the nature of God and inference of his will, and more so on the direction of God and the result of what he is “at work” in and how that coincides with what we want. One of the dilemmas which comes from this is a preoccupation on the steps of the path of God. So many times we put effort into interpreting each movement and action of our life in light of the isolation of itself or our mood, and we distract our focus from the Father. As the basis of the human struggle is to rely on “self” instead of God, we can become intent on the right path, the right action, the right thought, the right moment, the right condition or the right temperance. It draws the thought that God is unable to cause “all” things to work together for the good of his purpose. As if He is only able to do this if we do what is right. If WE must do the right thing at the right time to facilitate the right path to achieve God’s will for our lives; WE are all doomed. Fortunately, the God who loves us and knows us in our intimate places is eternally aware of our need for his grace and gives it to us continually.

The depth in understanding his provision calls us to embrace the freedom embodied in his control. The less we focus on our action, in conjunction with the more we focus on his person, we come to specifically know the peace which transcends understanding. We come to know and rely on his sustenance of our hearts and minds. There is a balance, as our actions do interact with the workings and inner workings of God in our lives, but the contemplative focus of purpose should be drawn from embracing his omnipotent control. We should fervently pursue Him in prayer. We should quietly bask in the silence of reflection on whom He is and who we are in response. We should meditate on his word. The Lord uses our intimate times with Him to draw our hearts and minds closer to his. It releases us from the demands of constructing our own purpose and significance for the world we live in and the experiences we go through. In a world which challenges us to be the masters of every situation we encounter, God calls us to relinquish the bondage of control and rest in Him and the fulfillment of his promises. With the state of the world today it can be a very difficult task to lay so many burdens of anxiety and confusion at his feet. We can take comfort in his promises to care for those he loves, as he takes us in our despair and draws us into the depths of Himself, restoring our hearts and perspective. As one of the masses in need of this kind of comfort, I find my thoughts drifting to the questions of turning to the left, turning to the right and being swallowed by the anxiety of what I need to do to regain control. The moment of need to curb the overwhelming apprehension in my own life, is calmed in the words of reflection and comfort in David’s confession of the Good Shepherd:

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

In our need He is there to bring us back to Himself and his promise of a hope and a future in Him.