The Work Set Before Me

I’ve heard it said – and I’m a fan of repeating it – that only God can unscramble an egg. Yet I ever balk at His ways, His timing and His order as He moves to unscramble. I don’t think a day has passed that I have not cried out or cried over or just plain cried at the work set before me by God because it’s not the way I would do it. Or it’s not the order in which I would address it. Or it’s not the time that I would deal with it. Not a day goes by without a new opportunity to bow, to surrender and to believe. This is my daily Cross and this is the work set before me.

Jesus replied, This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger].
John 6:29 AMP

Identifying the Work Set Before Me

I know very well what it is to work incredibly hard at everything under the sun EXCEPT for the work set before me. I know what it is to have the appearance of diligence without the accompanying fruit. In short, I have been an expert in irresponsibility. Now I’m asking the Lord to make me an expert in responsibility, and what He’s teaching me is not at all what I thought it would be.

I am ever being brought to the place of total inability! It is absolutely counter to every lesson I ever learned about what it means to be “a responsible, contributing member of society.” And I’m encouraged by that because it is the Word writ large and in living color. It is the reality of Romans 12:2, and in the Amplified Bible it’s stunning:

Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

Committing to the Work Set Before Me

It’s one thing to say, “I don’t know anything, Lord, You’ll have to teach me.” But it’s something else entirely to commit to that in reality. I renew that commitment daily because I always have a choice. And I know that the Spirit delights to confound my rigid reasoning and uninspired interpretation of events – not to mock or spite me, rather to destroy the old and dead to make room for the perfect wisdom and discernment He has for me. In fact, some days, the whole of the work set before me is to receive the confounding! I would go to read and search and find and KNOW, and He stops me and says, “Surrender to being confounded. Trust what I’m saying, have faith in what I’m doing. BELIEVE IN ME.” Hardest work I’ve ever done in my life, bar none.

Also the most rewarding. The fruit of every “I don’t know what to do” and “I can’t do this” is unmistakably foreign to the natural. And that’s where the reward comes in – I see Jesus. I hear Him say things that I don’t know to say. I see Him do things that I haven’t the strength to do. I feel the force of His love flow out to people I have no reason to like, let alone love. I experience the peace that passes understanding in situations that should have me climbing the walls.

I get to know God in the work set before me. And my main responsibility, my daily God-given work is to believe that He is utterly sovereign over every last thing in my life and completely, mercifully good and loving in all that He does.