The Average Jane Journal #15 - What is Your Godly To-Do List?

I was attacked this week. Were you?

I was spiritually attacked by the enemy. He works so hard to get us to quit doing God’s will.

During my Bible study today(Beth Moore-her studies are awesome-I highly suggest. Yes Regina, all these years you were right!!!), anyway our topic hit right on for the week I had had. On a side note, the last two weeks we had to go ahead two weeks because we couldn’t find the next dvd. So today we went back and did the two lessons we skipped-God’s timing???? Anyway, she made a statement about satan and how he works. The enemy will do everything he can to get us to quit, then he turns around and makes us feel even worse by calling us quitters and cowards. You’ve heard that voice, right?

I am thankful to my Lord for my growing strength in Him-and for those of you that I leaned on and cried on a shoulder. I got through my discouragement and am back on track.

Our lesson today was all about goodness-a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Her main point is that this fruit of goodness is always doing; actively benefiting someone else. This is something God has been opening my heart to for awhile now. I have realized my great desire to bring Him glory and to do what He wants of me. Do you realize that God made a to-do list for your life before you were even born? Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I have read that before but it means something now-now that I want to know what God’s to-do list is for my life. I am saddened to think of how long I have lived already and how many things I have not done on that list. What have I missed?

Beth talked about our culture of being self-absorbed, how easy it is for us to get bored. How much trouble do people get into because of pure boredom? Well, as she said in her southern twang and right to the point “they don’t have enough to do”. There is plenty to do in God, we all need to seek what God’s to-do list is for our individual life. We are all made different, with different passions and gifts, so our lists(good works) will be different from each other. And remember He knew what our good works would be before we were born!!! Isn’t that cool?

So back to my attack-this whole lesson today of course had me crying like a baby. (yes I know, I cry a lot these days)But I felt God was telling me the whole time that I was right where He wanted me to be and that I was working on my to-do list. I might not have handled my attack as bravely as I should have, but I didn’t get up and run like I wanted to.

So to close, the coolest thing God showed me today(via Beth) was found in righIsaiah 58:8 “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.” The whole scripture you should read is verses 6-11, but for space I only wrote the one verse. She called this scripture a prescription for our life-God’s promise when we “spend ourselves” on others.

I loved all the promises but the last part about the Lord being our rear guard is what I believe God really wanted me to “see” today. Of course we see that as a way of God saying “I got your back”, and believe me I’m thankful for that. But listen to what the Hebrew meaning of “rear guard” is-to gather in, collect…as in harvest.

So God goes behind us(rear guard) and does the gathering when we plant the seeds(good works). We don’t need to look back and see if there is a harvest-that is His job. So when I was attacked I started telling myself that I could never make a difference in others’ lives-but it’s not my job to bring in the harvest. I am just to plant the seeds and keep looking forward. We can get discouraged when we try to look back and see if any of our seeds are growing. Just keep planting-that’s our job.

So what’s your to-do list? And are you doing it?