May 9, 2003

Have you ever set out to do something where the odds seemed to be against you?  Maybe you’ve even had people tell you it would never work.  We often have people in our lives who want to give us advice.  Some advice is good and some is not.  Some is from the heart of God and some isn’t.  The challenge of life is to be influenced by the Spirit of God to fulfill His plans for our life.  Some of this influence may come in the form of godly counsel.  Godly counsel is good.  Especially if it’s given in the right attitude.  Someone may be giving us godly advice but the manner in which it’s presented may be hard to take and cause us to reject it.

I can think back to a time in my life as a teenager when I was set in my mind to do something.  I had many people tell me not to do it.  But it seemed the more that people told me not to do it, the more determined I was to do it.  It had to do with the way they were telling me and the reasons they gave.  It was the ‘you can’t do it’ attitude that seemed to stir in me a desire to ‘prove them all wrong.’  How many times have you had that motivation?

When we have a desire to do something and people are telling us we can’t, for whatever reason, we need to be careful not to let that desire to ‘prove them wrong’ become our motivator.  We need to stay close to the heart of God and make sure our reasons for doing what we do are because we are fulfilling God’s purpose for our life and not because of some other motivation.

Motivations like these drain a lot of energy out of us because we are not drawing from the strength of the Lord but we are allowing ourselves to be driven with an ungodly motivation.  Have you been tired?  Do you have a lack of strength and energy?  Take a look at what you do every day.  Take an honest examination of the reasons you do what you do.  Is there something you are determined to do that is not really a part of God’s purpose for you?  Is there something you spend a lot of time on that really isn’t a part of God’s plan for your life?

This isn’t to say that there are times we have to do some hard things and have some gutsy determination to see the plans of God fulfilled in our life.  There are obstacles we need to break through when accomplishing things for God.  But when your strength is not coming from the Spirit of God because He is not the one motivating you to do it then it’s time to re-examine some things.

When the Lord’s plans for our life become our plans then we do what we do in His strength and there’s great joy in that!  Not just a superficial excitement, but deep down heart-felt joy.  The kind of joy that only comes from being in the will of God.  That joy is our strength.  We need that joy in order to have the strength to live.

Take a look at the reasons you do what you do and be assured then when you are in the will of God, and you know it’s His will, then the joy of that will be your strength!