Things Don't Just Fix Themselves
Is there a situation in your life that you don’t necessarily like? Things don’t just fix themselves. Actively engage the situation. When we learn what we need to learn, apply wisdom and judgment; step-by step, day-by-day, we can make massive progress. But, if we sit around and complain, wishing things were different, our inaction, step by step-by step, day-by-day, lead us further down the trail of poverty. And our hasty haphazard efforts, are just as futile. Diligently plan and execute and trust God to keep His word.
The word of God says, The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance and everyone who is hasty comes to poverty. –Proverbs 21:5
Sometimes, we identify something needs to change. We actively engage in leaning, apply wisdom and judgment, and things prosper just as we hoped and expected. For example, we learned that the bible says, owe no man anything but love. So, we educated ourselves on how credit works. We created a plan to stop our credit card usage and by the grace of God, our diligent efforts resulted in a win. We paid off credit card #1. It’s one of three credit cards, but we did it! And it feels good! We apply the snowball method and credit card #2 and then #3 are paid in full. God’s Word proved to be true; the plans of the diligent really did lead to abundance.
But, if we are honest, sometimes it doesn’t seem to turn out that way. At times, we applied great effort to make a positive change and failed. We actively prayed about it and could not hear a word from God. In fact, it seemed like the hand of God was actively
against us. Then, we know of situations where people seemingly went off halfcocked and ended up winning. It’s disheartening.
Let’s assume the Word of God is true? Now, of course it is, but sometimes, we have to talk to ourselves this way. Let’s assume the Word of God is true and God knows all things and makes no mistake; He has not mis-spoken, nor misrepresented; and He does not make failed promises.
On the one hand, we know in our hearts, that God’s Word is true. On the other hand, our flesh is telling us another story. What we see and how we feel seem so real. But let us not lean to our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5,6). Since God cannot lie, obviously, it is our perspective that is off.
The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance. One of at least two things could be the case. One, we did not diligently plan, seek out counsel, and apply wisdom and judgment. We assumed we knew enough and could do it on our own common sense. We took the cheap route or the easy route. We were not willing to walk the whole mile. Or perhaps, we named it and claimed it and mistook that for great faith. We assumed our zeal was sufficient, but our hasty efforts led us to poverty (to not prosper in that effort).
Two, abundance did not necessarily come the way we expected. God was prospering us in deeper ways than we could imagine. We were getting wiser, stronger, and better- and they turned out to be more than words from a nice song. That seeming failure was the root of something wonderful that was about to spring up? Things really were working together for good for those that love God. The plans of the diligent were abounding in ways we just couldn’t see at the time.
Things don’t just fix themselves. So, actively engage in your betterment. Apply the good things you learn and trust God.
