To Don't List

It's cold outside, and cool inside too. Woke up much too early to get out of bed, so I snuggled up to my wife, breathed a contented sigh, closed my eyes, and... just laid there. In that moment of awakeness, my brain started booting up. Then I remembered a couple of things I need to do at work today and it was over. So I kissed my love on the cheek (she didn't budge), bundled up in my sweats, and came downstairs to turn on the coffeemaker. The automatic brew still has about 45 minutes before it starts, but I'm excited about the Caribou Reindeer brew that my friend Richard (www.richardisrael.com) highly recommends. Smells real good.

One of the first thoughts that ran through my brain this morning (as it was still booting up) was from Joshua 1. The Lord told Joshua "Be careful to do everything I told Moses to tell ya'll." (Yes, that is a Southern paraphrase. No, it is not less grammatically correct, it is more. In Latin, and most other languages, there is a difference between the singular and the plural forms of "you", so you can tell if you are speaking to one person or a group of people. Somehow in English it's the same word for both so you're never quite sure, you just have to figure it out. But Southerns have corrected that problem with the language - "you" is singular, "ya'll" (or you all) is plural. Or if you came from the mountains like me, "you uns" can be substituted for "ya'll", but I will admit that is less grammatically correct, even though I didn't suspect that until I was in high school and finally confirmed it at Chapel Hill.)

Apparently my brain is still booting up, but the coffee is done and as good as Richard promised. I see a new holiday tradition in the making.

So anyway the Lord was speaking to the group of people, saying he had given them instructions that, when followed, would result in success. Then immediately I could hear Jesus saying "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent me."

I've been focused a lot lately on my to do list. Or lists I should say. For work, for home, etc. This morning the Holy Spirit was reminding me of a couple of things:
First, that God's will is something do be DONE. Obedience is action. It is not meditation or intention. God told Joshua that the thing that resulted in success was DOING the Words He had spoken. Jesus said that his most basic need was to DO the will of God.
Secondly, that my focus should simply be on pleasing Him. Jesus told his friends, "When I do the will of my Father, it satisfies my basic needs in ways that you don't know anything about yet."

It's easy, for me at least, to get caught up in the day and the to do list. Sometimes religious people get caught up in the to don't list, which in my experience is much worse for all concerned. But this morning I'm taking a minute to think about what Jesus said - I have meat that you know not of. What are the opportunities that my heavenly Father has for me? What is His work for today. I pray that I DO that, and in the process get the most important items on the written to do list checked off too.