Devotion - Thursday, January 20

I continue to read from Ephesians. This morning I read 5:16 - "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

It isn't all that difficult to understand God's will; the difficult thing is living by God's will. I don't mean to imply that all choices are simple, or that all decisions should come with ease. But we cloud the situation by imagining all sorts of options or pretending that there are extenuating circumstances. In most cases, the will of God is easily known. The difficult thing is living by God's will.

It is God's will that we would live happy and productive lives. There are any number of ways that we could move toward this end. We might continue our study of engineering; we might choose to study secondary education. God's will is that we live a happy and productive life; God's will is not linked to one particular career path.

It is God's will that we care for neighbor and provide for his bodily needs. God's will cannot be identified with one political agenda or another; we might move toward God's will by "tax and spend" or by encouraging "individual responsibility."

I don't mean to imply that there are no specific actions called for in our following of Jesus; merely that we sometimes confuse following God's will with knowing our precise next step. It is easier to follow God when we look at the end toward which all this is leading and allow our feet to find the path.

"Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Finding complications or mitigating circumstances is one way of avoiding doing what it is that the Lord asks of us.