Trust Me. For the past five years that has been the consistent message. In just about every time alone with the Lord, every Bible study, every time in prayer. Trust Me. Trust Me with your time, your lack of resources, your frustration, your kids, your wife, your reputation, your ideas…trust Me. Therein lay the rub. If I choose to trust and do what I think He wants me to do, it takes time; time that cannot be used in other pursuits. Add to that the little I do in His name seems to have had little or no impact.
So for the past five years I have been struggling with this issue of trust, specifically what does it mean and what does it look like when one is trusting – seems important to me somehow. In an earlier post I wrote briefly about Hebrews 11:6. That has been the passage, it seems, the Lord has brought me back to time and again. I keep seeing the last part of that verse, “that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him,” in passage after passage; Isaiah 64:4; Psalm 91; Psalm 147:6; Jeremiah 31:6; Psalm 27:13, just the places I have seen it in the past three weeks.
The struggle for me is that not all of life seems to be working out so well. There are abundant challenges daily, some of which are significant, at least they seem so to us. I believe that He is. I am seeking Him to the best of my ability. Am I to look at my circumstances as my reward? Am I to trust that the junk I am having to deal with on a daily basis is His reward for my seeking Him? Am I missing something? Am I really not seeking? Or is my understanding of reward flawed?
If it is the case that God’s Word is true, then it seems to me that the only rational answer is that my understanding of reward is flawed. What do you think?
A life lived through the circumstances with a heart posture of putting God first is the reward! Our problem is that we think of "earthly" reward (money, stature, title, position, fame, etc.) rather than eternal reward (peace, joy, meaningful relationships, impact for Christ, seeds sowed). We cannot always see the impact our life lived has on others around us but when we do we will see the reward God is talking about giving to us. Like farmers, we go out into the field every day and toil and labor. It may take years before even one crop returns good - but when it does, we will see how many people we are able to feed with what was a small amount of seed and a lot of labor. So, my belief is that we must look for the eternal rewards - not the earthly ones.
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