Too often I get frustrated when I don’t seem to get the results I want and expect in my walk with the Lord. I have learned over the years, however, that the reason I sometimes get this way is that I forget that God’s timetable is often very different than mine and that I have the wrong perspective on viewing what God is asking from me. Let me explain.
One of the greatest insights that the Lord showed me many years ago is that God doesn’t want to be analyzed to death but wants to be loved and trusted. Often in the past I tried to figure out why my prayers many times took so long to receive the answer I wanted. At other times I wondered why some of my best apologetic arguments seem to fall on deaf ears. In both of these cases I am learning more and more to trust God and His timetable. In the case of prayer I am realizing I need to be more persistent and wait on the Lord. And in the case of sharing apologetic arguments with the unsaved I need to also spend more time in praying that the Lord would open closed minded hearts.
God is showing me more and more to not be so concerned with results but to just be faithful in prayer and the calling He has given me. The reality is the results are in the Lord’s hands anyway. Only God can open up a closed heart that is bent on a life of sin. I can’t save anyone – but I can pray for salvation and share the good news – and that is all God wants me to do – to be faithful!
Another area that I have seen God help me to understand better is His seemingly contradictory ways of doing things. On this point Pastor Charles Swindoll provides us with a key understanding of our role as Christians when he shared: “Things will happen that seem to be totally contradictory, but these are God’s arrangements. It was a wonderful day when I finally realized I don’t have to explain or defend the will of God. My job is simply to obey it.”[1]
God doesn’t call us to achieve results which often are in His domain. But what He does call us to be is faithful to His calling and the gifts He has given us, and to be obedient to His will – even when it may not make complete sense. In other words to simply obey His revealed will! And my friends when we obey His will I concur with the words of Charles Swindoll that it will indeed be a wonderful day since we will be pleasing our Lord and what can be more special than this!
[1] Charles R. Swindoll Quote: “Things will happen that seem to be totally contradictory, but these are God’s arrangements. It was a wonderful day when …” (quotefancy.com)