LEAVING ROOM FOR GOD

Image by Frederik Lower on Unsplash

LEAVING ROOM FOR GOD

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written,

 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.'" (Romans 12:19, emphasis mine)

Don't go getting out ahead of me now, I'm not actually going to be talking about not getting revenge or getting back at people, or "avenging yourselves"!  We're going to keep things pretty simple and straightforward today.

I happened to be reading Romans 12 the other day, and when my eye fell on this passage I suddenly found myself focusing not so much on the idea of "not avenging yourselves," but on "leaving room for God."  Not even the wrath of God, but just, quite simply … God.

Isn't it amazing how often we just start out on our way without really giving a thought to God?  I've been struck lately by how often we just go out and start living as we please and expecting God to bless us and walk with us.  It's not like we're doing anything blatantly wrong or sinful, it's just that maybe it would be better for us to make room for God first, and then go about our business.

How often we find ourselves getting out ahead of God!  How often we set out with our own agenda on well, anything, and expect God to bless us.  We believe in Jesus, so we just expect that as long as we're not doing anything explicitly sinful, He'll follow along and bless our ways.  Phil quoted someone recently as saying, "Jesus wants us to follow Him.  He doesn't want us to ask Him to come along with us."  Wow!  

Maybe a better place for us to start would be not so much leaving room for God, but making room for God.  A few years ago, I moved most of my dad's tools into our garage.  Now, our garage is probably not much different than yours.  The first thing I had to do was clear out all the old clutter and trash and put into order all the various things we needed to leave in there.  Once that was done, I could paint the workbench (which had been buried beneath a lot of that clutter) and then put up a pegboard that would allow me to hang most of the tools, and then stock the shelves underneath the bench with the storage drawers filled with nuts, bolts, screws and other odds and ends.  

I needed to make room for the tools before they actually had a space of their own.

The best way to leave room is to carve it out ahead of time, to safeguard that space from being encroached upon by randomly accumulating clutter.  Our life with God is no different.

I remember reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People many years ago.  Stephen Covey used to do an exercise  with big rocks and an empty jar.  He fills a large jar with gravel that represents all the many things that tend to fill our day.  Then he has a member of the audience try to add her high priority commitments, such as church life, relationships, family, career, planning, vacation, etc.  This proves immensely frustrating for her until she realizes that the only way to make room for the big rocks/priorities is to clear out the smaller things first. 

The moral of the story is that you have to put your big rocks into your life first.  Otherwise, they will only get crowded out by smaller, lesser things–not necessarily unimportant things, just less important things.

If you think back to my garage organization project, consider that most of us don't even have room for a car in our garage!  Now that's a big rock!  I suppose you could just open the door and hit the gas, crashing into the space and breaking things and making a huge mess.  Sure, in the end you might manage to get the car in, but you've paid a huge price in order to do it!

There are two solutions to this problem that we've already talked about.  First, we can clear away all the clutter, throwing out the junk and re-organizing the things we really, truly want to keep–we can make room.  Second, we can live in such a way that we leave room by keeping the space orderly, or at least spending time every week or so making sure we put things back where they belong.  As I learned many years ago (and still need to re-learn from time to time!):  It's easier to keep up than it is to catch up.

Now, you might have noticed that there will be seasons in which you need to make room in some part of your life, and there may be other seasons in which you need to leave room.  That's normal for everyone, of course, but let me say that life will go much easier for you if you leave room for God than if you find yourself again and again needing to make room for God.  This is why devotional time is so critically important. 

I know very well from years teaching high school students and Lifechange classes–and just from my own day-to-day living and relating to people–that not everyone is a morning person.  My broad experience from talking to people from all ages and all walks of life–not my own morning-person-preference!–shows that spending time with God in the morning, whatever that looks like for you, is the best way to leave room for Jesus–the ultimate Big Rock!  As our former pastor, Larry Evans used to say, "We leak."  If we begin the day filled only with caffeine and/or endorphins we're already starting with a mostly drained tank. 

Every day is a large, empty jar to be filled with commitments and responsibilities, and the best way to consistently walk with Jesus is to take His hand in the morning and abide with Him through the day rather than trying to catch up and invite Him to bless all the things you did without Him for the last 16 hours!  

Remember Phil's friend:  "Jesus wants us to follow Him.  He doesn't want us to ask Him to come along with us."  When we begin our day listening to Jesus and inviting Him to lead us through the course of the day, or praying like Mary, "Be it done to me according to Your will," don't you think your day will go better, whether you're a morning person or a night person?  I'm not suggesting you take a single thing out of your life.  I'm only suggesting you put Jesus in first.

The last thing I want anybody to do is pile themselves beneath an immense load of guilt.  What I do want, though, is for you to take stock, to take an honest look at your normal, day-to-day life and consider ahead of time how to get your Jesus Rock into your life first before He gets crowded out by the clutter that every day holds.

Please–please!–let me know how this goes for you!  I would love nothing more than to talk with you, pray with you, maybe sit down over breakfast or a cup of coffee and help you brainstorm ways to make sure your Jesus Rock has the place in your life He wants to have.  Remember, it's not about guilt it's about grace and peace, freedom and life in Christ!

Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.