I’m terrible at committing to things without praying about it first. I think it’s because I have a desire to serve people, but at times, I’m like Ado Annie from Oklahoma, I just can’t say no. I want to please people because, somewhere inside of me, I have not quite learned that pleasing people and serving them aren’t always the same thing. We need, of course, to live a life of self-sacrifice, considering others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3) and outdoing one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10). Yet at the same time, we can’t do so at the expense of what God has for us. For me, I serve the Lord First, and my first ministry He appointed me to is to my family, secondly it is the Lord’s position He has for me at the church, and after this, serving my community and others. If the earth is the Lord’s and all in it (which it is, Psalm 24:1), then I must make sure I am submitting to the One who establishes this order.
How many times do we ask the Lord’s permission to do something while we’re in the act, as if this is an acceptable option? How many times do we seek the Lord’s will only after we’ve blundered? Loved ones, the Psalmist asks the Lord to teach us to number our days (Psalm 90:12), in other words, to make the most of our time. And if we have truly submitted that time to the Lord, then we must also establish in our hearts that these moments are not ours, but His. We’re living on borrowed time, and I want to return what I have been given with more than mere interest. Let us, then, seek God at the first moment of the day, asking Him to be the Lord of our schedules, seeking to make the most of each and every day, so that He receives all glory, honor and praise from each and every moment He gives us. As we submit everything to God, watch as His peace and joy, and the contentment that brings, rule over our lives in every way.
Psalm 90:12-17
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!
James 4:13-17
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
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