Hey, I just wanted to pass along a Random Thought. It seems like we have the continual struggle about "How much, God, am I supposed to do and how much am I supposed to relax and know that you are going to take care of?" We continually worry. That is one thing that Jesus said we were not supposed to do - remember Luke 12 - at least 6 times in this one chapter He commands us, "Do NOT worry." But He wasn't saying to be Lazy either! Where is the balance? Here's a thought :
Co-Laborers with Christ
John 6:5-11 The disciples give there little bit : their 5 small loaves of bread and 2 small fish. The Jesus does His part : He multiplies a little bit of food to feed 5,000 men plus the uncounted women and children that were present!
Mark 4:26 The Parable of the Growing Seed : "This is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how." So the mans part is to simply go out to the field and sow seed. He is not responsible to make it grow - nor does he have the power to do so. God's part is to do the big part, namely making the seed grow and bear fruit.
* note - does this have some parallel to witnessing to people about Christ? We only need to CARE about people and speak! We are NOT RESPONSIBLE for them believing what we say or rejecting what we say - as long as we are "speaking the truth in LOVE!" (Ephesians 4:15 ) No arguing or aggressiveness, but sincere concern! It is Holy Spirits job to CONVICT people, not ours. Let's do our part and let the stress off! In this way we will be more effective in blessing people.
I Corinthians 3:6 : "I (Paul) planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."
Lastly, I had an experience Hang Gliding in Santa Barbara in 1997. There are only 2 lessons to flying : (1) Keep your eyes on the Horizon, don't look at the ground - which to me is a word about Life Vision and Fixing my eyes on Christ and (2) Relax! Once you pick up the Hang Glider and jump off the hill, if you relax, you SOAR! However, if you grab the triangular control bar that extends right in front of you too tightly, you will pull the nose of the Hang Glider down and never get off the ground. All that is required is to Pick up the Glider, Push off and relax and only 'rest' your hands on the control bar. Wow - what a
lesson. See, once again there is our little part - and there is God's bigger part. We do our little part and He does the heavy work - He carries us as the wind carried me through the air. The more I would struggle and try to control the Glider, the worse the flight would go!( we are taught to control our environment from birth -
but we must only partially control - not totally )
So - we are not talking about Laziness - Never! God never said to be inactive or Lazy. We need to find a balance:
not being Lazy or Complacent and not being Work-aholics or Overly Busy.
I have spent too much time in both camps. Reject the extremes that Satan tries to drive us into and find the "Narrow Way" that Jesus talked about. There is the place of
