Our effort and desire apart from the LORD leaves us feeling empty.
We conceived and writhed in pain,
giving birth to wind;
Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth.
The positive aspect of this frustration is that it teaches us to trust in the LORD.
Yes, for your way and your judgments, O LORD,
we look to you;
Your name and your title
are the desire of our souls.
We are so set on doing things on our own that it has become a habit. We are called to change this. We are called to do everything in Christ.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (see Colossians 3:17).
Practically speaking, what are some things from which we've already excluded God today? Reading the paper? Drinking our coffee? There is nothing too small or too trivial. If we occasionally forget, that's OK. We spent a long time building our habit of exclusion. It might take a while to build habits that remember him in all that we do. Yet this is his call to us.
"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."
We are called to do everything in Christ. We are called not to the yoke of our own effort, effort that gives birth to the wind, but the yoke of Christ which is easy and light. So let's be more intentional about this. A prayer like the Morning Offering is a good place to start.
We are not all that we are meant to be, because we have not yet received all that God desires us to have. He wants to restore us so much that he makes his prophet say, "your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise". We, apart from Christ, to the degree that we are apart from him, are the corpses. Our works are dead works. But he will give us life again and make us see the dew of light.
"The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die."
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