Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

We sometimes get all tied in knots over what we are called to do, when it is ultimately pretty simple. Micah distilled it even further: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) The question then becomes, what is it to love God and walk in His ways? Jesus was the ultimate demonstration of that. Whereas we will never achieve His level of perfection, He certainly set a perfect example. The problem, always, is that we give Him part of our heart, part of our soul, and try to hang onto the rest. That frankly doesn’t work. Every believer discovers that there are areas that they haven’t fully yielded to God. My father’s classic expression was, “Give all you know of yourself to all you know of Christ.” We don’t know ourselves perfectly, and we don’t know Christ perfectly, so this is a relationship that needs to be updated regularly. Daily is the best practice, starting each day in prayer and reading the Bible, asking God to show you more of yourself and more of Him, and renewing your commitment to obedience. That last part is quite important. “No” is one of the first words a child learns! Often, we know what God wants us to do, and like a little child, we stamp our feet and say, “NO!” That is never for our benefit! The one good that can come from it is if we will allow the Lord to use the experience to show us more of ourselves, so that we can then submit it to the Lord and allow Him to cleanse and grow us. The process can be painful, but that’s what maturity looks like, and that is the path of peace and happiness.

I too am in the middle of this. Last night the last leg of our trip home from the conference was truncated when the trains stopped running toward Nagasaki because of the severe rain. We kept getting conflicting reports of what was happening, and so didn’t move to get our tickets refunded until much later than would have been wise, and then we were in something of a panic reaction, not knowing where we could spend the night. A friend, contacted by phone, gave us some stability, and even made a reservation for us at a hotel right in front of the train station, that we hadn’t spotted because of the rain and because it occupies the upper five floors of a tall building. The experience is to teach us flexibility, to trust that God has everything in control whatever it feels like to us in the moment. We do have the issue of my wife’s medicine supply, but when her medicine intake was quite varied because of time zone changes during our trip to the US a couple of months ago, this shouldn’t be a major issue. As God told me many years ago now, we need to rest, relax, and rejoice, knowing that He is God and He loves us.

Father, thank You for this reminder. I do ask for clear guidance and protection as we make our way home today. This compresses the time we have to be ready for the service Sunday, but it’s certainly nothing You can’t handle. May we continue to grow, to become and be all that You desire of us, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!