PROVERBS 16:3
SUNDAY & MONDAY, AUGUST 5 & 6, 2007
DON’T YOU WISH YOU WOULD HAVE?
3 Commit your works to the LORD, And your thoughts will be established.
Proverbs 16:3 (NKJV)
Often when I travel back down my own personal memory lane, I think of
things that I wanted to do but never did. Now, as I look back, I really
wish I would have. Don’t you wish that you would have done some of those
things that you thought about?
Maybe the things that come to your mind are similar to these examples:
A person will come to the Funeral Home for the time of visitation. Often
we will have a brief conversation and several times they have said to
me, “Pastor, I thought about going to see (name of the deceased) last
week, but I didn’t. Now I wish I would have.”
This may be a common example in many churches. The announcement that
there is a need for Vacation Bible School Teachers has been in the
Church Bulletin and Newsletter for several weeks. Now on the Sunday
before the first day of Bible School, the Pastor announces that Bible
School has been canceled because there are not enough teachers. After
the service more than one person tells the Pastor, “I thought about
volunteering but I didn’t. Now I wish I would have.”
One more example, this time from my own life. I can’t count the number
of times I thought about writing devotions and maybe even enough for a
book. When I would think about it, I would use the same excuses that you
might use with a different thought. I am too busy and don’t have time. I
would not write well enough. I have not had formal training in writing.
Nobody would be interested in reading what I would write. Excuse after
excuse and that was enough for me to put the thought aside. Now, I wish
I would have written then, AND I am glad that a few years ago I started
to write.
This question of DON’T YOU WISH YOU WOULD HAVE? not only applies to our
Spiritual Life, but to our daily life as well. This is as it should be
as there should not be a difference as our Spiritual and Daily Lives
should be one. All that we do in terms of education, finance,
employment, social activities, and entertainment are so much easier when
God is involved in our decisions.
Read again this verse from Proverbs 16:3 - “Commit your works to the
LORD, And your thoughts will be established.” If in addition to eating
our fruits and vegetables daily, we also have a good diet of prayer and
Bible Study, then our physical and spiritual lives are strengthened.
When we live in the Strength of God and ask Him to lead us in all that
we do, IT IS AMAZING WHAT HAPPENS.
Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, our thinking can change from
“What do I want to do?” to “God, what do you want me to do?” When we are
doing this, we are committing our “works” to the Lord. We are seeking to
do as the Holy Spirit leads us. In the case of my writing, when I
believe that God is involved in my thoughts, when I express my words in
writing, I am confident that somehow, some way, God will lead someone to
the books that I have written or will write, to my free monthly
newsletter or to this web site where that person may find the words of
HOPE that can lead him or her closer to God. If I believe that my
thoughts are pleasing to God and If I act on them, then I have complete
confidence that God will establish them. That means that God will see to
it that they serve Him. The same thing can happen in any area of your
life. Make the decision to not just think about it, but DO IT and allow
God to use the results for His Glory.
WE PRAY:
Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.” AMEN.
“TAKE MY LIFE AND LET IT BE” from cyberhymnal.org
A SUGGESTION FOR LIVING THE DEVOTION
What is the most important, God pleasing thing that you have thought
about doing but have never done? Start praying about it, praying
about doing it, and praying that God would send the Holy Spirit upon you
to lead you.