I think we sometimes have the opinion that doing God’s will has to be hard and complicated. Often times we allow the enemy to deceive us into thinking God’s will is hard. When it says in scripture…”deny yourself and take up the cross and follow me,” it can make us think that denying ourselves is a huge sacrifice. And, wow! carrying a cross sounds grueling and hard!
Actually, giving up what we think is best and allowing the “One” that created us to direct our path IS the path of least resistance for our created purpose. We all have a purpose. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Too many times we want things to make perfect sense before we step…or we want to see the end before we begin. If we did, how would we ever be able to demonstrate our faith? In Proverbs 3:5-6 it says, “Trust in the Lord with ALL YOUR HEART and LEAN NOT on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge me and I will make your paths STRAIGHT,” [emphasis mine].
Let’s unpack that verse and study it a little. For our lives…we all want straight paths. Having those straight paths won’t always make human sense to us. For example, the account of Naaman is found in 2 Kings 5:1-16. Naaman was a commander in the army of the King of Aram and highly regarded. He was a valiant soldier but he had leprosy. He was told by a young girl, who he had taken captive, that there was someone in Israel who could heal him.
So the King of Aram sent Naaman to the King of Israel with a letter so that he could be healed. The King of Israel tore his robe because he was asked to do something he could not do. Elisha, the man of God, the Prophet, heard of the King of Israel tearing his robe. He said, “Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
It is key to note that there was no Bible yet so the prophets, like Elisha, were the mouthpiece of God. When Naaman went to Elisha, “Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, ‘Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.'” That sounded too easy and ridiculous to Naaman. Verse 11, “But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to meet me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the spot and cure me of leprosy.'”
Because the instructions didn’t come through Naaman’s expectations, scripture says he went away in a “rage!” It continues to tell us that Naaman’s servant challenged Naaman’s thinking, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you wash and be cleansed!” You guessed it…Naaman then went and did exactly as was instructed and he was healed!
Many times in my life now I see God’s will can be easy…
…but we try to complicate it….
…because we want it to make sense to us.
We fly into a rage because our expectations of God are our own understanding. We think that we will hear, or should hear, in a certain way from certain people.
I encourage you today…don’t put God in a box. Understand…we cannot out think Him or overpower Him. HE IS GOD. HE has us. We just need to draw close to HIM and TRUST, even when it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes we try to complicate God when HE simplifies HIS WILL FOR US.
“It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn’t seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand. In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God.” ~Maria Augusta von Trapp