BTW God…
Opportunity is knocking…what will you say? Is it an impulsive “YES” or a I’m too scared to take a risk “NO”?
Sometimes when opportunity comes a knockin’ at our door, we have already made the decision in our mind, but to sound spiritual, we tell everyone we are going to “pray about it”. After all, we want to be in God’s will, don’t we sisters? We want to be able to say that we got a word from God!
I wonder how often the word we claim we received from God is really our predetermined decision. God could have written us a message in the sky or had Gabriel announce it from Pike’s Peak, but because we had already set our mind to do what we wanted to do, we couldn’t see it or hear it!
I see this same kind of mindset in a man named Johanan in the book of Jeremiah. Judah had been all but destroyed by the Babylonian invasion. At the end of chapter 41, you see that Johanan had led the remnant in Judah to a place “in order to proceed to Egypt.” It was only after this decision had been made that Johanan and some other leaders thought maybe they should have Jeremiah the prophet run the plan past God’s ears in prayer. They promised Jeremiah that whatever God told them to do, they would do – “whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen…” (Jer. 42:6).
Well, long story short – Jeremiah prayed and God said NO to a road trip to Egypt. (Jer. 42:19). God promised the remnant protection if they just obeyed. But, because they had already set their mind, they ignored God’s message that came through Jeremiah and went on into Egypt anyway. Jeremiah 42:15 & 17 contain the phrase “set their mind”. This was the problem that would practically eliminate Judah’s remnant from the face of the earth except for a few refugees.
At times I have been totally oblivious to God’s will because of my “set mind”. I have rushed into His presence under the guise of prayer with my mind made up with my own plans. Why? Only to present them before God – not for His approval – but just for His general knowledge. In other words, a BTW (by the way) for God. That is pure arrogance, no better than the remnant of Judah. It is hypocrisy at its worst.
Sometimes we chase opportunities without consulting God because we think it will be “just the thing” to make us happy or fulfilled. But friends, not every opportunity is OUR opportunity. It is not wrong to plan and consider them, but lets be careful to sincerely seek God’s face. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of a man plans his ways but the LORD directs his steps.” Sometimes those steps are PURE exercises in faith. Our mind may be screaming GO WITH YOUR PLAN! But if God throws a NO our way, there must be a bigger YES down the road! Just wait for it.