God does not make checklists

 Ok, God, what do I need to do today? 

When we ask God to order our days, He does not make checklists, or prioritize, or divide the significant from the insignificant, put everything in alphabetical order, or decide what is worthy of our time, effort, and achievement.  He does not send out an agenda or marching orders.

God does not order our day by arranging it systematically.  God ordains it by bringing His divine appointments and sacred encounters into these 24 hours, even those that may appear as glitches or interruptions, or simply ordinary matters.  But God ordains by bringing His purposes and designs, by weaving awe into the great and small, and by infusing eternity into our days. Our times are in His hand.  God does not just fill, but fulfills. 

God does not call us to tasks.  God calls us to Himself.

What do I need to do?  I find that I am asking the wrong question.  Instead of defining the day by tasks completed, checking them off, as if to complete my day by what I do, I need to be asking what I need to be today.

What we write at the top of our page and at the beginning of our day, determines not just our course but reveals our hearts.

 

God takes care of the rest. Everything is both ordered and ordained, set apart for His glory, anointed and appointed.  We have only to be faithful in what He lays before us.  Faithfulness fits all circumstances, stretching over, enlarging, covering, and embroidering far beyond what our eyes can see and exceeding our lifetimes.  I can't do everything.  But I can be faithful.

And so, in whatever situation we are slogging through or up to our necks, we can approach it, navigate it, and see it differently. And because our lives are differently ordered by His Presence, a new operating system, we can respond differently.  We can live, work, and love differently, because we have been changed by the Almighty.  Not abiding by a holy to-do list, but abiding in Him.  It is all sacred.  And that changes everything.

Even when we don't see it or understand it, God is not just using what we do, but God is working in and through us.

In his epic devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers points out, "We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God.  As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises."

Order my day, O LORD.

Ordain my time.

Guide my steps.

Direct my thoughts.

Align my heart with Yours. 

But I trust in You, O LORD;

I say, "You are my God."

My times are in Your hand.

                      Psalm 31. 14-15