The Instruction from God

Don't be afraid, Daniel.  Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them (Daniel 10:12)

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But you must return to your God;

maintain love and justice,

and wait for your God always (Hosea 12:6).

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As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how the body is formed in a mother's womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God,

the Maker of all things.

Sow your seed in the morning,

and at evening let not your hands be idle,

for you do not know which will succeed,

whether this or that,

or whether both will do equally well (Ecc. 11:5-6).

We want to do the work of God---but it is difficult to know exactly what that means.  Should we be volunteering in soup kitchens, handing out blankets to the homeless, or toiling in a mission field somewhere?  When I was in high school, I remember thinking that I did not want to give my life to God, because I was sure that He would send me somewhere I didn't want to go, and that I would never get to do what I wanted to do.  How little I understood about God at the time!

Looking back on my life now, I realize that God gives us certain desires in order that He might also fulfill the "desires of our hearts," in the words of Psalm 37:  Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.  He is not about dashing our desires to the ground, but wants to fill us with good things.  He promised to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to "a land of milk and honey," which means fertile fields and growing crops.

So how do we get to the land of promise?  What is the work that God wants from us?  Someone asked Jesus this question, and His answer was this:  The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent...for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world (Jn. 6: 29 & 33).

It seems to me that the very first thing God wants from us is exactly what Daniel did:  to set our minds to gain understanding and to humble ourselves before the Most High.  In response to Daniel, God sent the vision of "One like a man" to reveal to Daniel what must come.   The prophet Hosea also received visions and understanding regarding what God was doing, but he was told simply to "maintain love and justice/ and to wait for your God always." 

The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us to simply go about our daily work "with all our might," for we cannot understand the work of God, or whether whatever we do will succeed.  Yesterday I wrote about praying that we might be given a part in the ministry of Jesus, who was all about doing the will of the Father.  Since we cannot really know what God is doing in our lives, or where His work today lies, I think the advice given to Hosea and to the writer of Ecclesiates is the best:  set our hand to the work of the day, humble ourselves before God, who is doing His work today, and believe that He will do His work somehow through us.  Our part is to "maintain love and justice, and to wait for our God always."

Once the burden of (apparent) success is off our shoulders and onto God's, we are free to move through our days with humility and joy, trusting in the work of God.  Many of us seem to have the idea that God is "sitting" "up there," waiting to see what we will do to please Him or to annoy Him.  But years ago, I had a card that said, God, it seems to me, is a verb.  As an English teacher, of course, I loved that saying, knowing that the definition of a "verb" is a word that expresses action or being.  God is not "sitting;" He is still in motion, still creating a world that He sees as "good," still breathing life into mankind.  Our work is to look, to see, to understand, and to believe in the work of God among us today!