April 25

“Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” (Proverbs 9:6)

Do you wonder if you are moving toward God or away from him? Perhaps you’re not sure if you are in sync with the Lord, in a particular area of your life. It’s a mystery to me why anyone with more than one device these days would not want his or hers to always be in sync with each other. One of the features I most appreciate about my iPhone and Mac is that I have the same calendar, full of appointments on both, as well as some other things that I always sync. I suppose that there are reasons not to sync them, including lack of storage space or separate uses for them. However, with God, there is no good reason to be out of sync.

There are times when Christians choose, either consciously or unconsciously, to be disconnected from God. There are even some seasons when the Lord himself seems to have moved away, and his presence is dimmed, for a particular purpose, as with Job. But when we are the ones moving away from him, God will use his Word to redirect us, as he did when he spoke to King David. David wanted to build a sanctuary for the Lord but in 1 Chronicles 17:4 God said, through Nathan, “It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in.” In this case, the Lord did precisely the opposite of what David envisioned; God built a house for and from David, and a dynasty for his name.

God spoke through the mouth of a donkey to Balaam, and he whispered to Elisha in a gentle wind (Numbers 22:22-35; 1 Kings 19:10-15). The Lord sent the wise men around, not through Jerusalem after they worshipped Jesus and sent Joseph, Mary, and Jesus to Egypt when Jesus was a few days old (Matthew 2:12-15). Jesus directed his disciples to go to Galilee before he ascended and the Holy Spirit led Cornelius to bring Peter to his house (Matthew 28:16; Acts 10:22).

How often do we concentrate on what we should not, cannot or don’t want to do, rather than on what we should and can do that is enjoyable? “The disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’” (Matthew 9:14-15) Here were John’s disciples trying hard to be religious and what they needed to was exactly the opposite—rejoice and celebrate with Jesus, the bridegroom.

Are you going in a direction opposite from where you should be going in your life? Are you growing more distant from God and perhaps family members when you should be getting closes (in the midst of a conflict)? Are you on the verge of forming an intimate relationship that is best left alone? Will you wisely consider how you may be doing the opposite of what you should be doing in some area of your life? Image what you may learn in the process and how you will grow closer to Jesus.