Delegate and Invest

As I walked, I prayed. Rather than pray the minutiae as I usually try to do, I decided to just hold each person or situation up to the Lord’s throne of grace, and invite him to bless with that which was most needed in each situation. 

It is liberating to pray like that. Not to get bogged down in the detail but to soar above, to focus on God’s throne of grace and trust that he knows what is needed far more accurately than I do. Imagine going into the doctor’s office and giving him the diagnosis for your ailment. Yet that is what I so often try to do for myself and others.

I got through my list and was still walking, so my mind began to wander to my plans for 2014. I have been toying with a change of plan and began to think that to change to my new course of action would involve delegating some of the responsibility I take on myself, to others. To trusted others. 

And then I heard the whisper in my heart. ‘Delegate to Me’. Tears sprung to my eyes as I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Of course. Jesus invites us to ‘come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will refresh you.’ He invites us to invite him to share our ‘yoke’ and allow him to take the strain.

Do I trust him enough to do that?

Challenge number one for 2014. Yes, I am going to trust him with that, with his help. Every time I feel myself slipping into the stoop of bearing a burden too heavy for me, I will delegate to Him. Hopefully I’ll do that before I get into a stoop...

A few hundred yards further on and that divine whisper resounded in my heart once more. ‘Invest in me’.

Of course. Nothing we ‘own’ in this world is really ours. We hold everything in trust for the Lord. And He, or circumstances, can empty our bank accounts and strip us of our assets in a flash. There is no point in worrying about our material wealth, our investments. Ultimately they will not yield the results we crave.

But to invest in God – well. Where do I begin? We’ll reap rewards in our own personalities and spirits – become better people, even begin to show evidence that we ‘have the mind of Christ’ perhaps. We’ll reap rewards in the peace we have about whatever is going on in this maelstrom of a world in which we live. While others fret, we will rejoice that God indeed has – and is – the last Word. And the interest we gain in our knowledge of God – our relationship with Him – will carry on out of this world and into the next.

So, 2014 will be a year of trying to live out the freedom which faith in Jesus brings – as I delegate to Him, and invest in Him.