This morning I knew I had to blog but about what? I really wasn’t worried because I know God well enough to know that at some point today, He’d provide the content.
Lately it has been a bit hard to get out of bed, but the good thing is that I spend some of that extra time just reflecting. This morning I had some questions. I wasn’t really anxious or anything but I had some questions about a certain aspect of my life. So, I talked to God about it. A few hours later, the conversation continued and after He responded I felt such peace. Hence our snippet this morning. It is not that the peace that I had, left. It is just that I wasn’t as aware of it, or it didn’t feel as tangible as I have grown accustomed to it feeling. When I poured out in conversation, not the bawling before God type of pouring out, just a simple, pedestrian conversation, I felt peace very strongly. And the scripture that came to mind was “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” (Isaiah 26:3 KJV).
In other words, God’s work is to keep us in perfect peace. But, in order for God to do that, we must do something. Keep our mind stayed on Him. We only do that because we trust Him. However, even in prayer sometimes our minds wander. We are watching TV but we can’t tell you anything because our minds are elsewhere. We’ve all experienced that. So in order to keep our minds constantly on God, that requires work on our part.
As my day progressed and I was cleaning, I was recalling how hard cleaning is when you work the proverbial 9-5 and have a side business/hustle, volunteer with various organizations and do the work of the Lord, or you are actively involved in ministry. It is a lot of work! It is tiring but someone has to do it. And if you live alone, you have to do all of it unless you can afford to pay for that type of assistance. And then it dawned on me. Everything in life requires work.
To stay in shape, you have to eat healthily which might mean cooking more often at home than eating out; and you have to exercise – in other words, work. When you are dating someone to get married, you have to take time to get to know the person, figure out how to compromise et cetera – in other words, work. When you get married, you have to choose what is worth an argument, if anything at all and you have to choose to work at that relationship constantly in order for the relationship to work – in other words, work. Even in platonic and family relationships, we are all flawed, compromise is work! As it relates to finances, even if you inherited a fortune, you will have to work to keep it and grow it. If not, you will lose it and then have to work to get it back – in other words, you get it, work!
No matter where you go in life, if you intend to live meaningfully it will take work. It will also take choosing. Choosing to work or by default choosing to get whatever else comes. So, since we have to work anyways, we might as well enjoy the work. I believe that if we condition our minds to the notion of work, it might not be so hard after all. Yes, when the work is not equitable or it doesn’t seem meaningful, or in a relationship, it seems like only one person is working towards maintaining it, we have to choose to either work or walk away. Walking away is still work as you will now have to figure out how to move on after assessing what went wrong in addition to when and why.
So, are you going to choose to work? What are some areas in which you need to work harder to maintain or grow? What are your views on the notion that everything requires work?
GMW