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This Week’s Devotional Topic
BUCKET LIST – LORD WILLING
Do you make a “list” for things you want and/or need to accomplish? The young, or ‘young at heart’ make a list of dreams and goals. When folks get older or due to health issues, they realize that their time is short, they sometimes make a “bucket list”. That term refers to things they want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket”. I learned the value of making lists at a fairly early age and I’ve grown to live by them. As a matter of fact, as I’m producing this program, I see two lists on the counter here in my studio. One is for a call that I need to make once each day until I get in contact with a particular company. The other list has five things on it that I hope to accomplish today.
Scripture provides some pretty good guidance/instructions for us regarding our goals and desires.
As we consider our “to do list”, we should ask God for wisdom and guidance.
James 1:5-8 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
As you ask God for His guidance, His vision, His wisdom then be sure that it matches His law, meets with scripture, His word.
Proverbs 29:18 “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild….” NLT
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. KJV
When we pray, asking God for direction, for His “list” for us, He can and will use many different ways to show us. It could be through His word, counsel from mature Christian friends and even uses circumstances.
Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Having desires, goals, and aims are okay, but don’t get caught up in your own project.
Consider the example of the Tower of Babal, how that God had made it very clear that they were to multiply and fill the entire earth. They had very different plans.
Here are God’s instructions to Adam and Eve from Genesis 1 and then he reminds Noah and his family right after the flood, chapter 9.
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Without respect to what God had made clear, the descendants of Noah made their own plans and goals for a project.
Genesis 11:1-4 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
When you think about doing things on the list, remember to stay open to God’s direction and timing. Know that despite what and how you think things will go, God knows what is best for you. Always keep the perspective that “Father knows Best”.
Proverbs 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Rom 8:28, 29 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
James 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
In other words, don’t fail to do this, actively seek His plan, His will for your “list”.
This week’s Scripture:
Proverbs 3:5,6; 16:9; 29:18; James 1:5-8; 4:13-17; Genesis 1:28, 9:1; 11:1-4; Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28,29
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