“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.”
Isaiah 26:3-4 (NIV)
God wants to do amazing things in our lives. God wants to work through us and for us to bring about His purpose in our lives. Let me say that again. God wants to do amazing things in our lives. While His goal isn’t to make us happy, God does enjoy blessing His children and giving us good gifts.
However, I have learned over the past several years, God waits for us to invite Him into our lives before He goes to work. Why is that? As believers, we know God knows everything about us. He created the whole world, He knew everything we would do and experience before we even breathed our first breath, so why does He wait instead of just coming in and doing what we need?
I believe there are two reasons for that – both decided out of His great love for us. First, God created us as humans, not angels and not robots. We were born out of His desire to have a relationship with us. However, in order for it to be a real relationship, God created us with free will. That is just a fancy way of saying we get to decide what we do and don’t do. The most important free will choice? Whether or not we will accept God’s gift of Jesus dying on the cross and believing He is the only way to get to Heaven and spend eternity in God’s presence … or choosing to be separated from God for all eternity and spending it in hell with Satan and his minions.
But, free will is much more than that. Free will is also about whether or not we want to spend life in bondage to sin and other issues that hold us down or whether we want to experience all the freedom God offers for the lives of believers. God won’t force His freedom on us anymore than He will force salvation on us. In order to get freedom, we have to ask for it. We have to invite God into every situation we are facing, or as I like to do, invite God into every area of my life and let Him decide what areas He wants to work on.
The second reason God waits for an invitation is again about relationship. He wants to have a real relationship with us – one that is mutual, one where we come to Him, not just to ask Him things, but one that does involve us asking Him things. He wants us to want to spend time with Him, get to know Him, find out what He likes, doesn’t like and then want to obey Him. When we develop that type of relationship with God, our Father, then we want to invite Him into our lives, giving Him complete access to all areas. When we trust that His way is best, then we get our agenda out of the way and leave room for God to come in and do amazing things – things we can’t even imagine.
Are you ready for God to work amazing things in your life? Have you taken the first step and sent Him the invitation yet? After all, in order to see the blessings God wants to give, mailing out the invitation is crucial.
© Cheri Swalwell 2018