February 9

“Our Lord does not come to us to discover what we would like to accomplish for Him.  He encounters us in order to reveal His activity and invite us to become involved in His work........Are you prepared to meet God today?  Don’t seek to hear from God unless you are ready to ask, as Paul did, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 2/9

Wouldn’t the world change if every professing Christian were to ask each day, “What shall I do, Lord?”  When I first read Blackaby’s thoughts on this subject last summer--that God invites us to join Him in the work He is already doing--it radically changed the way I viewed all my activities.  No longer would I decide there was a need for something, and I should be the one to fill it like I’d always done in the past.  Invariably, it never seemed to make much of a difference in the long run. If it was some program started at church for instance, attendance was never that good, or I burnt out after a while.  I can see now how my own effort to start and maintain something that God wasn’t in would not succeed for long.  But to join God in something He’s already doing...and to ask “What shall I do, Lord?” guarantees results.  In addition, I wouldn’t feel the burden of the responsibility like I would if I’d thought it up.  

To join God in His work is something anybody can do no matter their position or material resources.  Some days it may not extend outside your own home for He might be working to bring someone close to you to Him.  Other days it may be across the world by sending a check to meet the needs of a missionary whom God has called to bear witness to Him in a foreign land.  It doesn’t matter what it is, only that we make ourselves available.

“Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias.  The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.”  And he said, “Here I am, Lord,”  And the Lord said to him “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul; for behold, he is praying, and he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.”  Acts 9:10-12