...This Work Thing...Is It Our Hokey Pokey?

But I said, "I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God." - Isaiah 49:4

It's off to do more training. It's another business trip. Where is it this time? Toronto...Chicago...and then home.

You put your right foot in and out and you spin all about and you do the Hokey Pokey and turn yourself around and THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT!

Really?

Have you ever felt like you're spending your life using your talent for things that people value to be sure but perhaps in the grand scheme they are useless?

I've been taking more care of my time (really...I have!) and it just seems that life is often spent doing mundane activities that seem to have little eternal purpose.

If you read the entirety of Isaiah 48, 49 you get a sense that the great prophet Isaiah was struggling with his own purpose. He knew he was chosen to be a voice for God, yet life became purposeless for Isaiah. He had come to a place where what he did didn't seem to give him what he needed as a man to feel true fulfillment.

Now this is a big subject and I am about to hop a plane but you must be similar to me. We all go through periods when our purpose seems to be clouded with the mundane. We see little meaning in life. It is my struggle. I see moments and relationships where God is so there. I also see many others and other things I am doing that seem tired, worldly and minimally valuable. As we can read in this segment Isaiah didn't stay in this place. We read in this passage that he knew the truth of his existence and that truth, His being, was of far greater importance in God's scheme than what it might otherwise appear.

Like Isaiah we need to look past this present circumstance and know that our real reward and purpose is fully revealed in eternity. We also need to get that giving God glory isn't about our "doing" all the time but it's about our proclaiming with all of our lives and not just our well-done work. Isaiah knew that God was just and loving, so he placed his faith on this truth. Isaiah wasn't accepted by God because God measured the work of this man and found it, comparatively, really good work. No. This was about the work God did in Isaiah. Our Heavenly Father found that work perfect!

When life appears to lack meaning and purpose, remember that if you devote your life to the purposes your Kingdom Daddy has for you, the fruits of your labor will be manifested in due time. But more than this, you will realize your satisfaction will come in your growing relationship to Him and not to the better and more valued the work of your hands may be judged otherwise.

As Paul said, The ONE who has called you is faithful; He will perform it - I Thessalonians 5:24

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~