One week ago yesterday I stood in my driveway with such a sense of accomplishment. For the first time since we had moved into our home… drum roll please… my truck and Lauri’s car were both in our garage! Have you seen Clark Griswold’s facial expression in the movie Christmas Vacation when the 50,000 imported Italian twinkle lights finally lit up his house? I probably had a similar expression of uninhibited joy. “Joy to the World…”
One of my summer projects was adding a shed/garage to our shop building to park the tractor and UTV in so that they wouldn’t take up space in our garage. On Saturday evening I had finally completed that project and moved those things out there… and yes… parked the vehicles in the house garage. Satisfaction realized!
By the way… remember that impressive wind storm last Sunday? Perhaps your home lost power? Ours didn’t… but a big ol’ tree did fall in our woods… right on that new garage… yep… just 24 hours after I had finished it.
Monday morning I just stood there… looking at the big tree laying across that new garage… and wept. Ok, I didn’t actually weep… and while I didn’t have quite the melt down that
Clark had when his 50,000 imported Italian twinkle lights didn’t work — I will admit I was a bit frustrated. Fortunately, the damage is mostly cosmetic and won’t be too difficult to repair, but it reminded me that sometimes our best laid plans and intentions don’t turn out the way that we planned.
In Wednesday night prayer meeting we were reminded of how fragile human plans are but how invincible God’s plans are. In Acts, Luke records, “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” Acts 5:38-39 NIV (Thanks, Barb Postema)
God’s will and purposes will always prevail. Serving, ministry, using our spiritual gifts are all really good things, but it is so important to remember our dependence upon the Holy Spirit when we put those into practice. Because when we do those things in our own strength we are in danger of just getting the feeling of accomplishment, but we might miss out on real spiritual opportunity to see God work through us. I’m talking about those moments that God uses us for something… well… eternal.
Accomplishments, satisfaction… even serving, if of “human origin” will fail. But if it is from God… who can stop us? So, let’s be folks who listen for and feel the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing and seek to be people who move in that direction. May we seize upon the opportunities that He presents to us. Just how do we do that? Well, just look in the direction of the fallen trees.
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