Sometimes I get frustrated with the way my walk with the Lord is going. It seems there is not enough happening and that I am not doing as well as I would like. Last night I was reading a book, and was reminded of something which I knew, but sometimes seem to forget.
One of the books I am actively reading is a book called "Deep-Rooted in Christ: The Way of transformation" by Joshua Choonmin Kang. He makes the following observations:
[Quoting Richard Foster he observes:] "The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside." (p. 68)
The confusion was eventually wiped away when I read Colossians: "To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me" (Colosians 1:29 NIV). (p.69)
The Holy Spirit who endows us with grace is also the Spirit of discipline. The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us for discipline. He guides us through the disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation, solitude and self-control. ... Only by the Holy Spirit can we receive the strength to engage in spiritual disciplines. (p.70)
As we are reminded by Paul,"for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Philippians 2:13
We are to work out our salvation (Phil 2:12), but it is God who is at work in us. Only God can form Christ in us. Only God can deliver us from evil. I am struck by how this comes out in the Lord's Prayer:
“Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one." Matthew 6:9 – 13 (emphasis mine)
Grasping the fact that it is God who works in us to form Christ, things get a bit easier, but that requires faith. "Lord I believe, help my unbelief" (Mk 9:24). God is faithful even when we are faithless (2 Tim 2:13). Have faith in God.
You might say, "That is all fine, but why is He taking so much time to do that work?" Well Kang follows this with another set of observations.
Where does God develop as servant? In the wilderness. Yes, as the Bible reveals, God enrolls his servants in the rough-and-tumble school of the wilderness. (p. 73)
"The way of God is the wilderness," Misty Edwards sings.
In the desert those who have trusted only in themselves and others learn to put their faith in God. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit are the teachers. (p. 74)
One way we are trained in the desert is by waiting. ... Many great figures of the Bible went through long periods of waiting before God sent them into action. They were restless while God was molding them, but eventually their spirituality matured. (p. 75)
The forty seemingly insignificant years that Moses spent in the desert were hard years. The most challenging thing he had to suffer was the silence of God. (p.76)
Yet, as Kang observes so well:
A waiting moment will never be a wasted moment. (p. 76)
With this in mind, many discipleship "programs" seem strange, in that there seems to be a sense that we must "do" something, or have something "done to us." Maybe it is not stated that way, but isn't that they way we often take it? Let us wait on the Lord His work.
From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him. Isaiah 64:4
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