God's Agenda

 I guess most of us get up each day with some sort of agenda.  Lately, I have been starting a list early in the morning, since I can't seem to remember my priorities as the day unfolds and I grow increasingly tired.  

But slowly I seem to be learning that God also has an agenda for me each day, and the only way I can discern His agenda is to listen as well as to speak in my morning prayer time. And more and more, I am learning to listen peacefully to God's agenda early in the morning.  

One of my favorite prayers is the following;  Holy Spirit, think your thoughts in me until your thoughts become my thoughts.  I am trying to "lean into" the Holy Spirit to direct my daily activities.    Scripture tells us that Jesus rose early in the morning and went off by himself to pray.  In the Gospel of John, He says, "I do nothing on my own, but what I see the Father doing, I also do."  To see what God is doing, it seems that we must really cease for a period from our own agendas and "doing."

Even at the age of 12, Jesus knew He had to be about His Father's work. 

I think God never intended for us to stumble the best we can through life, and then to turn to Him only when our resources are depleted.  God tells Abraham in Genesis 17, "Walk before me and be perfect."  That phrase ("be perfect") puzzled me for years until I read that "perfect" can also mean "complete."  

Aha!  We are not finished products in our own right!  God breathed His Spirit/breath into Adam and Adam became a living being.  It is God's breath/Spirit in us that completes us; without that, we are continually gasping for breath in our lives, so to speak.  And God knows we feel it on a daily basis!

I find that when I quietly listen for God's agenda in my daily life, things seem so much easier and smoother.  Even menu-planning, my weekly and daily nemesis, seems to unfold without my usual hassle. It's not just about preaching the Gospel or serving the poor; God has a plan for the simplest activities of our daily lives.  Proverbs 4 says it best:

the path of the righteous is like the morning sun,
shining ever brighter til the full light of day.
But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; 
they do not know what makes them stumble.

[It's pretty clear from the Gospels that the words "righteous" and "wicked" do not refer to saints and sinners but rather to those who walk with Jesus and those who choose to walk away from HIm!]  So even we sinners can Walk before me and be perfect! if we are willing to listen.