Diversions

     When I began writing devotions for this website, my goal was to publish one devotion per week.  Unfortunately, lately, I have been slipping up a lot and not accomplishing my goal because I have been putting together weekly lectures and PowerPoint presentations for our Wednesday morning Bible study.  These lectures require a lot of research and take time to write, so there are not many extra hours to work on anything else.  For a while, I worried about not meeting my goal, but then I realized even Jesus had diversions in his ministry.

     I thought of the time Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus to tell them their brother, Lazarus was very sick.  They asked Jesus to come right away but he stayed where he was two more days before he went to Lazarus, who died during the delay.  Jesus probably had other ministry responsibilities he was taking care of.  As you may remember, Jesus did eventually make it to Lazarus and raised him from the dead.

     Another time, Jesus was on his way to heal the dying daughter of the synagogue leader, Jairus, when, along the way, Jesus took the time to heal a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years; diverted again.  By the time Jesus made it to Jairus’ daughter, she too had passed away, only to be raised from the dead by Jesus.  Each time, even though Jesus was diverted, the end was result was even more powerful than it would have been if Jesus was on time and on the original schedule.

     I realized that Jesus was on God’s time, and that is the goal for my life.  When every morning, we give our schedules to God, we don’t have to feel bad about not accomplishing our list for the day.  Maybe it was on our list, but not on God’s.  In my case, God has diverted my plans to write devotions so that I can work on a powerful Bible study on insecurity and right now, He wants me focusing on that.  The devotions will come, just like this one, but only in his timing.  One of the prayers I pray almost every morning is based on Psalm 119:133 (KJV): “Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” If God orders or directs our steps, then there is never any remorse about what we have accomplished at the end of the day.  The end result is all according to God’s plan, so give yourself a break!  The Lord may have a different “to do” list for you tomorrow than what you’ve written out!