I pray that you will make me fit for what you are calling me to do.
That's what I wrote, but that's not what the verse said.
It actually said to be.
That little switch of words discloses a lot about me.
This is how the verse actually reads:
"Pray that God will make you fit for what he has called you to be. Pray that He will fill you with good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it amounts to something."
2 Thessalonians 2:11 MSG
God isn't as interested in my doing as my being. I'm an enneagram 1 so I need to repeat this to me, and I struggle with it over and over.
Don't hear from this verse that God has nothing for you to do. This does not mean that you sit around basking in God's presence accomplishing very little for His kingdom. The Bible strongly contradicts that. It means that we stop relying on our own "to do" patterns, and we focus on "to be" habits. Being is where we get the strength for doing.
According to this verse, the first step towards being over doing is to pray that God will fit and fill us.
He will make me fit for His purpose. This means that I pray that God will make me a vessel that He can use. God will take all the circumstances I give Him and use them to mold and shape me. Then He can fill me with His energy to accomplish His purpose for me. He can't fill me until I'm fit to hold it. Sometimes that means cleaning out the sin in me. Sometimes it means identifying and getting rid of the lies I'm believing. These create holes in me. I don't want to be a leaky vessel.
He does the work, and most importantly...He gets the glory.
"I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfils His purpose for me.
…God will send out His steadfast love and His faithfulness."
Psalm 57
The steps are pretty clear; cry out to God first. Then, He will send His steadfast love to fill and His faithfulness to accomplish.
He does the work, and most importantly...He gets the glory.
My problem is that I depend too much on me. You'd think I had let myself down enough times at this point to stop that, but I do it over and over.
It's like God wrote these verses because He
knew I'd need the reminder that it doesn't depend on my effort. It depends on what God does with my effort. His multiplication is the formula that makes it work.
Again that doesn't take out the step of our effort...it just ensures success.
God graciously lets us participate in the battle so that we can share in the victory. That's a party I want to get to be a part of.
I challenge you to practice being over doing. Take every place that you have a "to do" and ask God to cover it. I'm serious. Write out that "to do" list. Ask God for His energy for each one.
car rider line
grocery store
meeting
dinner
PTO
office
mow the lawn
speaking event
test
phone call
These are some every day things this can be applied to. Your list might look completely different, but don't skip this step. Identifying the need helps us work it out of God's supply and not ours.
As you choose to be God's child, you are perfectly placed to receive His energy and power.