Your Life of Confident, Relaxed, Peace (seriously, your life)

“Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” Exodus 17:5–7

The people of God thirsted and God provided. In between they grumbled, complained and questioned weather or not God was even with them. Their story is a seemingly endless loop of the same, unmet need, complaint, despair, provision, repeat. I wonder how many of us find ourselves in the same sort of routine. Or worse, if maybe we are actually more ambivalent because things are pretty good for us and we feel mostly in control.

In any event, neither complaining or ambivalence are recipes for abundant life, the kind of life God wants us to have. God wants us to have lives that, regardless of circumstances, are lived out of a place of confident, relaxed, peace. This life posture is birthed in a heart that trusts in God’s promises, his power to accomplish them and his goodness and love for us. God is going to accomplish what he intends to accomplish.

Like Moses and the Israelites, like David, Bathsheba, Jesus, the apostles and every other person in God’s story, the shape and bent of our lives are not determined by our limitations but by God’s infinite love. And nothing can hinder or frustrate his plan, purpose and promise, even when we try work arounds to God’s promise (like Abraham did with his wife’s maid servant Hagar). God has a people, and God has a plan. God will work his plan, despite impatience that leads us to try to get ahead of God, God’s plan will still be what God’s plan will be.

Everyday we wake up in the middle of something that is already going on. You do not have to make it happen. Anything that is important about divine or human life has already been intended and promised and it will come to fruition. Now that may or may not include you getting that promotion. It may or may not include your ability to have children. It may or may not include a good marriage. I don’t know. But I do know that anything that is truly at the root of Gods intention for humanity has already been determined, intended and promised and it will come about. Our troubles and the troubles of the world don’t define God’s plan, God’s plan gives the problems we read about in the newspaper context, and it gives our intractable problems context, and it gives the dashed hopes of promises their context.

The result? A way of life marked and lived by confident, relaxed, peace.

In order to experience this reality we must continually remind ourselves and repeatedly find ways to enter into the reality of God’s plan. Our focus at Creekside this year is Simply Scripture. As we engage with the Word of God, the Word of God engages with us. One of the many opportunities to do this is to join us during the month of October in a short daily devotion of praying scripture. The resource we are using is Pray As You Go, a short podcast put out by the Jesuits in the UK. It does a great job of connecting you regardless of the busyness of your day into the reality of scripture. You simply push play and relax as music and the scripture is listened to.

Join us in this and post comments on the Creekside Pray As You Go event page.

Peace, hope and love

Doug