Task Mode

Mark Batterson referenced this passage on his blog and it really it me hard this week.

"How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?" --Galatians 3, The Message

I know that Paul is talking about living by the law and earning salvation, which I know I can't do. But as I work in ministry, I think I start trying to earn salvation or spiritual growth for other people. I forget that other people need God to work in them just like he did in me, that those experiences can't be manufactured or worked up.

This has been the hardest lesson for me to learn in DC. When I get busy, I go into task mode and start making lists of everything I need to accomplish. The tasks become the only thing I can see. And I forget what Jesus says in John 15:5, "Apart from me you can do nothing." That's one of the hardest verses in the Bible for me to believe, but one of the most important. Everything always seems to come back to whether I'm connecting with God or trying to do things on my own.