What Do We Do?

Waiting. We usually don’t like to do it, even when we know what is at the end of that waiting time. But that seems to be most of our Christian lives. We live our lives waiting for God to do something. We wait for him to answer our prayers. We wait for him to make the world better. We wait for him to show us who we are supposed to marry or what job or career we are supposed to have or what house we are supposed to buy. We’re always wondering what we are supposed to do.

Even the disciples asked Jesus that question. In the Gospel of John, Jesus had just fed the Five Thousand and walked across the lake to the other side when the disciples discovered him. When they asked him how he got here, he responded,

“I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” (John 6:26-27)

He is saying here that the people following him are here because they are looking for something to eat; they are looking for immediate gratification. They don’t realize that he just fed 5,000 people (at least!) with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. They just know they got something to eat: “You ate the loaves and had your fill.”

Jesus goes on to say that they should look beyond the food that spoils; they should look to the bigger picture, to what “endures to eternal life.” That really confused them! If you don’t think we should work for food that spoils, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (John 6:28) They want to do the right thing, but they don’t know what it is. Isn’t that what we ask when we are waiting? “OK God, what do you want me to do? I can’t just sit here!”

Look what Jesus says: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29). What?? Is that all?? All I have to do is believe? What does that mean? Do I just sit around all day saying, “I believe in God, I believe in God”? I want to know what to do! Maybe what God wants is that whatever we choose to do, we do it with a believing heart, a heart that trusts God, that he is working in us and through us, and that his will is being done as long as we do it trusting in his power and love.

So maybe we are supposed to be who God wants us to be and the doing will come as a result. Then maybe it will seem less like waiting.

Being Focused

“I dare not urge you to your Cross. But He, more powerfully, speaks within you and me, to our truest selves, in our truest moments, and disquiets us with the world’s needs. By inner persuasions He draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God’s burdened heart particularizing his burdens in us. And He gives us the royal blindness of faith, and the seeing eye of a sensitized soul, and the grace of unflinching obedience. Then we see that nothing matters, and that everything matters, and that this my task matters for me and for my fellow men and for Eternity.”

—Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion

This is the opening quote in a lesson from a small group Bible study I've been leading on Heart Renewal. This particular lesson is called “The Renewal of Focus.”

I wonder if this quote is what inspired Frederick Buechner to say (and I’m paraphrasing) that our calling is where our deepest desires coincide with the world’s deepest needs; that’s what I hear Thomas Kelly saying here. God disturbs our comfort and complacency, the deep part of our hearts, with the world’s needs. When we are feeling uncomfortable, for example, seeing children, not only in Africa, but in our own hometowns, not having enough to eat, we should pay attention to that inner voice. When we feel unhappy or concerned that a particular group of people, for example, artists or women or singles, aren’t being treated well, especially by the church, we should pay attention to that inner discomfort.

It is not just our being disquieted or disturbed by the world’s needs. The very next sentence says that “He draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God’s burdened heart particularizing his burdens in us.” I love that idea! They really aren’t our burdens, are they? They are God’s burdens that He is willing to share with us. It reminds me of Ephesians 2:10 which says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (NASB). If we let Him, God will let us in on the work He wants done. He knows the situation and has prepared it and us to meet up—that is, if we are willing to let God lead us.

I have been using the word “we” here a lot, and I very definitely include myself in that we. I also need to keep my own focus on God, on the disturbances He puts in my heart, and on following the way He leads.