Day 30 – Issue 14

Be Still Know

John 6:29 NLT

Jesus told them, ‘This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.’

For many years I worked hard for God. I was on the road with a YFC team, visiting schools, youth clubs and churches, carrying a message of salvation in Christ. The theology I’d been taught spoke of being ‘saved by faith alone’. Yet, my faith demanded that I engage in activity morning, noon and night. It was a recipe for disaster, and aged 27 I collapsed through physical exhaustion.

I lived as though God’s love was dependent upon the number of hours I invested in fulfilling Jesus’ injunction to go and make disciples. Even though Katey was deteriorating with her progressive MS, we both believed it essential I maintain a ‘faithful witness’ and realised my evangelist’s call. I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable spending the majority of Sunday away from Katey, engaged with our church. Katey had long lost the ability to make the journey and participate in the style of Sunday gathering we practised. I eventually recognised that God invited me to take time with Katey on Sunday, the day when her carer visits were the least frequent. I’d wheel her chair across to our local park and we’d sit, sometimes talking and praying, often in silence, reflecting upon God’s goodness to us as a couple and as individuals.

It dawned upon me that all those hours of ‘faithful’ labouring in the gospel were all about me. Together, Katey and I discovered our worship and work were one and the same; simply to pause and believe in Jesus, both incarnate and glorified. In so doing I no longer sought to prove my value and earn my salvation through external works I felt constrained to perform.

QUESTION: Do you find yourself working to prove your faithfulness to God?

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I praise you that the kingdom and my place in it depends not on what I do or have done, but on you and what you have done.