Aimless

If you are like me you have a plan for your devotional time with the Lord.  If you are like me sometimes the Lord changes the plan.  This morning I was restless.  The words in the Bible were blurred by the fog of urgency that was rising from all of the “important” projects in which I am engaged at the moment.  This has happened before, no, often, so I recognize the symptoms.  Usually, stopping, praying, journaling, will clear the fog.  No so much this morning.  It was a battle, multiple starts and stops.

There was a list of all of these projects in my journal, I prayed and released them all to Christ – the struggle I continually face is in gaining my value from what I am doing rather than the fact that Christ has drawn me to and completed me in Himself.  Somehow I still hold onto the vain notion that I can gain favor and approval by my enormous contributions to His Kingdom – yeah.  It was about at this point He gently changed the direction of our time together.  He does that with me by bringing passages to mind in this case, Colossians 2:9 – 10; Psalm 127:1 – 2; 1 Corinthians 15:8 -10; Colossians 3:17, 23, and then as I was finishing up I got an email from a friend that referenced Proverbs 4:23.  If you read through all of those you may struggle with the tension between rest and completeness in Christ and laboring hard on His behalf.

It resolved for me as I took some time to look at the word “vain”. You probably noticed that it shows up in both the Psalm 127 and 1 Corinthians 15 passages.  Rather than share my thoughts now, take some time and think through how these relate.  I will share my thoughts tomorrow.