Monday, January 16, 2023
I don’t know about you, but once I decided to do things God’s way instead of mine, it started feeling like work instead of winning! At my age, I’d just as soon drift along the dwindling streams of my life with the least amount of work and stress I can manage. After all, I’m retired!
“Worked hard all my life, no help from my friends! O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?” I’m still channeling Janis Joplin!
What else can God expect of me? Well, then I stumble across Abraham, who began his adventure with God when he was 3 years older than I am right now. I think I would be pretty grumpy if God told me to leave my country and my family with the promise that at some point in the distant future, my descendants would become a great nation. From a human perspective, that’s a big ask with a very uncertain pay-off.
Genesis 12:1-3
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
Abraham trusted that God wanted him to win, to be victorious. So Abraham went. I think we can agree that Abraham accomplished all that God had for him. He did indeed become the father of many nations, and through Jesus Christ, a blessing to them all.
This wasn’t an easy journey. There were many trials and challenges along the way. Abraham didn’t always get it right. But he trusted (for the most part) that God could and would do what he said he would do. Finally, God entrusted Abraham with the son he promised, a boy who would begin the legacy. God gave Isaac to him and Sarah well past the time when they would have physically been able to bear children. (I’m afraid I would have been grumpy about that too!) He was obviously a gift God gave them to steward because they had tried for years to get it done themselves without success.
And just when it seemed like all was going according to plan, God made another big ask:
Genesis 22:2
“Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
I imagine Abraham is thinking: “Wait! What? This is the kid I’m supposed to build my nation with, to be a blessing, etc! How can that happen if he’s dead?”
But by now, maybe after 40+ years of following God, Abraham knew that what God gives is only on loan to us. We are to steward the gift and be willing to let it go if God asks. I read this passage, and I wonder if I would have been able to match Abraham’s unquestioning obedience with my children. But Abraham trusted God and came to know him in a new way: Jehovah Jireh—the God who provides—when an alternate sacrifice was provided in Isaac’s place.
In the trials and sacrifices that come from choosing to obey God, the pay-off is always greater than it would have been had we tried to accomplish things on our own. All we have has been given to us by our gracious and loving Father, our Jehovah Jireh. The gifts he provides are ours to steward, to care for with an open hand, should he require them of us.
God wants us to win, to be victorious. We have a choice: will we try to hold on to his gifts, or are we willing to be stewards of all he has provided to further his work? And if we trust in him, we are ready to win within. It’s pretty amazing that he has decided to use us to accomplish his plan for planet Earth!
I want to make the most of all he has given me for all the time he has planned for me. My win will come from being a good steward!
The Bottom Line: Winning within starts with stewardship.
Questions:
What gifts have you received from God? How are you stewarding them for kingdom use? Does doing things God’s way seem hard to you?
Next Steps:
In your journal, make a list of gifts you have received from God. Offer them back to him in prayer with thanksgiving, and wait to see how he tells you to use them. Share this list and your plans with your group or trusted friend and ask them to hold you accountable.
21 Days of Prayer
Day 8 Prayer Focus - To Know my Calling (1 Peter 2:9)
Dear Father, as a follower of Jesus, you have given me the right to be your child. You have set me apart and called me one of your chosen people. I can now show others your goodness and be a light to them
Parent Prayer
This post was written by Lauri White. Lauri is one of the 25 people that God used to start CedarCreek in the Fall of 1995, and was on staff until 2013. Lauri loves Jesus, and loves helping people, especially women, live out of the truth about who we are in Christ. She and her husband Mike live in Oregon, but now spend winter months in Florida near daughter Kelda and her family.