Hebrews 10:36 - Slowing down to get ahead

Hebrews 10:36 "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised."

Winter weather surrounds us here in the northern hemisphere, ice and snow are everywhere. The gray skies and the short days makes everyone a little gloomy. Despite all that there is still work to be done. During this past week driving between work and my apartment, often as not it felt like there were as many cars in the ditches as there were on the road. Tow-trucks and big 4x4's were everywhere pulling people out, people who had gotten into a tad bit too much of a hurry or had made the mistake of hitting their brakes while on ice.  It is a good example for our lives, those cars in ditches. It is all to easy for us to try and speed things up because we are impatient. We think we know God's plan and we get in a rush. Then the next thing we know is that we are spinning and out of control, ending up in a ditch and needing to be pulled out. When God gets around to drawing us out of our predicament and we are back in the path of His will for our lives we find that we are right where we would have been if we had not hurried along and gotten ahead of God, but now we have to also deal with the consequences, issues, and problems from our little adventure in the gully. Our car is more battered and bruised than it was, the engine running slightly rougher. Perhaps there is a ding or two more and a crushed bumper to repair later on. All this because we found ourselves impatient and in a hurry to reach the end of that trip.

We can only really go as fast as God wants us to go, no faster. There is an old saying that God is never early or late, He is always right on time. It is a true and faithful saying and we should really remember it. God's will always happens at the right time, at the time God wants it to happen. We as humans tend to either want to get ahead of God or lag behind Him when we should be right there with Him. Really the only safe place for us to be is in the centre of God's will for our lives.

The other mistake people often make, besides trying to adjust the Lord's time-table, is to try and adjust their perception of perserverance. To perservere does not mean getting there by any means, but rather to get there at all. "Persevere" is defined by the American Heritage dictionary as "To persist in or remain constant to a purpose, idea, or task in the face of obstacles or discouragement." When we are seeking after performing God's will, we are to persevere and remain constant, not push onwards and through whatever obstacles there might be, but instead take our time and allow God to move the obstacles away. Our own strength is limited, God's is limitless.

Finally, our english word "persevere" comes from the Latin "persevērus" which means "with all seriousness" or "very strictly". So let us this week approach God and following His desire for our lives, and submitting our will to His with all seriousness, Strictly obeying His commands and precepts and pacing ourselves to Him rather than to our own desires. Let's not allow this world another foothold in our lives! We don't need the humiliation of having to get God to tow us out of one more mess which we made again either. Lets have a great week, secure and safe in His arms, centered totally on Him.

Lord, for tomorrow and its needs I do not pray;
Keep me, my God, from stain of sin just for today.
Help me to labor earnestly and duly pray;
Let me be kind in word and deed, Father, today.

Let me no wrong or idle word unthinking say;
Set Thou a seal upon my lips through all today.
Let me in season, Lord, be grave, in season gay;
Let me be faithful to Thy grace, dear Lord, today.
                                        Sybil F. Partridge, 1877.