OUR SUNDAY RESPONSE – THE PATH TO MEEKNESS

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

OUR SUNDAY RESPONSE – THE PATH TO MEEKNESS

Usually when I pray in the morning, I sit in my chair just inside the double glass doors that look out on the patio, Sandy's garden, and the woods beyond the fence.  But this morning I went outside to actually sit on the patio while reading and praying.  It was still cool and there was a pleasant breeze, the birds were singing (I read this morning that yesterday was the largest bird migration in our area for several years – you could really tell!).

I say all this because my position in prayer only changed by about 11 feet (that's right, I measured it!), but that short distance changed everything.  I normally look out back at everything "out there" while I read and pray.  But this morning I was actually in the "out there."  It's a super-small difference, but it changed my whole perspective on both the outdoors and on my reading and praying.

This is really the heart of what I mentioned at the end of our worship service yesterday morning.  If you weren't there, I said that we normally have a response time after the message (and wasn't Pastor Phil's message powerful yesterday?), but that this week our response time was going to extend into the entire following week.  Our response to the message this week is to put ourselves in a position to let go of our fear, anger, anxiety, self-pity – whatever "gets our back up" in the course of daily life – and to lean into God.  We don't do this very well or very consistently, do we?  

So our response to the message this week is to practice doing just those two simple things:  letting go of what triggers us, and leaning into God – no other agenda, just setting down whatever we're carrying, and giving God permission to work on our wounded and weary hearts and souls.

What if we could get better at not so much trying harder to be a good Christ-follower, or finding a new self-help trick to help us get over our obstacles to Christlikeness, or developing a more effective plan for spiritual growth?  What if we could just relax and trust God and commit ourselves to him, and let him be the one to bring change and growth, healing and maturity? (See Psalm 37!)

Friends, I'm not kidding when I say I believe that this is the entire "secret" to vibrant Christian living.  Seriously!  By faith, Christ lives in us, and when we trust him, when we make room for him, when we watch for and listen to him speaking to and guiding us, he will do as he promised!  I believe the same thing Paul said to the Christians in Philippi is true for you and me:  "There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears" (Phil. 1:6, Message).  It's God's work to do, not ours!  (Granted, we do have a part to play in this amazing lifelong process, but our part is mostly just getting out of God's way and positioning ourselves in such a way that he can get at us!

And that's what God drove home for me on the patio this morning – a little change of position, a little shift in perspective, can do everything necessary to open the door to God's life-giving, joy-filled Presence in us and for us.

So I don't expect all of you to respond to Pastor Phil's message by coming over to our house tomorrow to sit on our patio!  The secret isn't the patio or the birds or the woods, the secret is the presence of Jesus himself.  

Here's what I do want you to do:  Find just two minutes in your day every day this week.  Make it a quiet place –indoors or outdoors – where you can be relatively sure of no interruptions.  And then – remember, no agenda! – maybe set a timer on your phone for two minutes so you don't have to wonder whether your time's up yet.  (It seems kind of silly, doesn't it?  Just remember that the point of the timer isn't to help you keep track of the time, it's to help you stop thinking about the time!)

And then just open your hands and offer yourself as entirely to God as you can, saying one or more of the following:

"Be it done to me according to Your word."

"Into Thy hands, Jesus."

"Let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done."

"Here I am, Lord."

That's it. You can even do this more than once a day if you have the chance!  And wouldn't it be wonderful if one day we could manage to carry this attitude or posture with us through every moment of every day, so that two minutes without a sense of him would be the shocker?

I believe with all my heart that God longs for you to invite Him into your heart and life this way.  And I also believe that making this a regular part of your daily life will change your life in ways you cannot even imagine.  The key is your invitation to Him, your consent, your permission.  You're not telling God what you want Him to do, you'll just be inviting Him to come in and do whatever He wants!  You don't have to figure out first what He wants to do in you and then ask for it.  The burden isn't on you to figure it out, the burden is on Him to finish the work He has already started!  What a wonderful adventure we're about to embark upon!

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