Forward, somehow I felt I needed to change from 3rd person to 1st person, at least for now. I hope that those of you who travel along with me can still find a blessing from this blog
DEVOTION
THE 1ST LETTER TO THE THESSALONIANS
MAKING A WAY
1 Thess 3:11
11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way
for us to come to you.
NIV
There was a time in my life I wanted to make my own way. I
wanted to make my mark on the world, to make a name for myself. For the most
part that was before I knew Jesus, but even after knowing Christ, I still may
have had that goal. Here Paul is saying that is he looking to God the Father
himself and our Lord Jesus to clear the way for him to come to Thessalonica. I
know the Lord is a lamp onto my feet and he lights the path before me. But that
requires me to walk on the path that He lights. Then it would make sense that I
cannot walk my own path, I cannot want to make my own way in life, for my life
is hidden in Christ. I know God has given me the ability to make my own choices
in life, but those choices stem from one of two positions. The first is
from the point of being a non-believer. I had to choose to either stay a
non-believer or to choose to believe. As I chose to believe, of course, after
the incredible show of power God demonstrated to me through a miracle that I
could not explain, I now have two choices. One is to ignore the voice of the
Lord and still attempt to make my own way in life, but including God in my way.
The other is to simply follow the path he has shown me, making no choices for
my own, or effort to make my own way. That almost sounds like doing
absolutely nothing unless God speaks to me about where to go and what to do. In
essence, that is pretty much how it is. This is not to mean that I cannot
decide whether to shop at one store or another or that I cannot decide today
is a good day to mow the lawn or go golfing. What following the path God has
me on is about being in the place he has directed me to live and work. Following his path is also, which is the most important, where I should fit into his kingdom. This is about how he has decided
which of his gifts he determines to manifest in my life, where he wants me to
worship, and how he decides how I should administer the gift he is blessing me
with. I do not know how long I am supposed to travel any particular path, within
the general path to my heavenly home. What I know is that I need to proceed on
this particular path as though I were traveling on a road with all green
lights. If someday he were to give me a red light, then I
must wait for further instructions, but for now, I have the peddle to the metal
headed along the path he has laid out
before me. If and when he ever decides I should change course, he will let me
know, of that I am confident. But for now full speed ahead as he makes a way
for me.
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