Five Ways We Hinder the Flow of God's Work in Our Lives
Mark 6
In our last post, we talked about the first two ways we hinder God's work in our lives - trying too hard to understand and settling for a religion of goodness rather than of power.
Today, we'll talk about the final three and they all have to do with our expectation. When it comes to seeing God do amazing things in our lives, what is your expectation? Do you anticipate that He'll do something miraculous? If you don't, it could be because one of these three reasons - all of which will keep us from experiencing the power of God flowing in your life.
Dam 3) Isn't this the Carpenter?
Dam 4) Isn't this the son of Mary and brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?
There are times we do not experience the miraculous work of God because we associate that kind of work only with certain people - usually us. Other people, denominations, have a less pure understanding of who God is and what He can do than we do. We have Him all figured out, we know everything about Him, we know His family, He's our people - so surely He couldn't be working over there, working in ways we're not accustomed to.
I hate that I spent a lot of my life looking at other denominations claiming "God doesn't work like that". I knew Him too well to think He would move outside of my comfort zone. I was wrong. And every day I believed that, I dammed the work of God in my own life. There was so much He wanted to do that He could not do because of my stereotypes of other believers and their experiences with God.
Scripture calls believers "stewards of the mysteries of God". Some things will always remain a mystery, and we are poor stewards if we denounce some mysteries be explaining them away. God works in ways we don't understand among people we do not know in ways we've probably not experienced.
Dam 5) Aren't His sisters here with us?
Even a rudimentary understanding of the role of women in the 1st century will tell you they weren't much more than commodities. As much as Jesus elevated women through His ministry and gave them value and dignity, here on the front end of his ministry things in the old hometown were likely status quo.
I'll be honest... I really struggled with understanding why this statement is in this account. Really why would it matter where His sisters were? Why would having His sisters among them keep them from believing He could do miraculous things?
Here's what I think - and I'm happy to be corrected or at least engage in conversation about this - I think this statement boils down to an expectation of enough, maybe even less than enough. Could it be that it signifies an attitude of being ok with less than God's best for us - the pendulum swing from a prosperity gospel to a poverty gospel neither of which can be completely supported scripturally. We don't need Him to do miraculous things for us. We have this meager, less-than-God's-best amount and we'll just get by.
I am by no means all about prosperity and neither am I about poverty, but I believe God wants far more for us that we have the guts to ask for. And our willingness to accept what could be viewed as just His leftovers will dam up the work of God in our life and keep us from experiencing His miraculous provision and blessing on our life.
So when it comes to God's work in your life - in you or through you - what are you expectations? How have you been hindering Him from working miraculously in your life? Trying too hard to make sense of things? Settling for a religion of good works instead of God's power? Expecting Him to only do what you've seen Him do, in only the manner you've experienced? Assuming His best is for other people while you just make do? Whatever the dam, I pray God helps us remove it so that His glory can be vividly revealed in our lives.
Mark 6
In our last post, we talked about the first two ways we hinder God's work in our lives - trying too hard to understand and settling for a religion of goodness rather than of power.
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| Photo by Justin Camp |
Dam 3) Isn't this the Carpenter?
Do you think this is the first century equivalent of "don't quit your day job?" Or like us, did they have a hard time imagining Jesus could do anything other than what He'd always done. "He's just a carpenter. I've only ever seen Him do carpentry." And we too have the same low expectations of Him. "I've never seen Him work that way before." Or worse, "He won't do that, because I've never seen Him do that."
Following this, Jesus proceeded to do miracles and signs and wonders around Israel, and in what could be an affront to their argument that He'd never done that before, He rarely performed the same miracle with the exact same method again. It was as if He took great pleasure in finding new ways to do old things.
Are you looking at your needs and expecting God to do only what He's always done? Are you open to whatever way God wants to break through and do what only He can do? Or have you built a dam of limited expectations based on only what you've seen Him do before?
Dam 4) Isn't this the son of Mary and brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?
There are times we do not experience the miraculous work of God because we associate that kind of work only with certain people - usually us. Other people, denominations, have a less pure understanding of who God is and what He can do than we do. We have Him all figured out, we know everything about Him, we know His family, He's our people - so surely He couldn't be working over there, working in ways we're not accustomed to.
I hate that I spent a lot of my life looking at other denominations claiming "God doesn't work like that". I knew Him too well to think He would move outside of my comfort zone. I was wrong. And every day I believed that, I dammed the work of God in my own life. There was so much He wanted to do that He could not do because of my stereotypes of other believers and their experiences with God.
Scripture calls believers "stewards of the mysteries of God". Some things will always remain a mystery, and we are poor stewards if we denounce some mysteries be explaining them away. God works in ways we don't understand among people we do not know in ways we've probably not experienced.
Dam 5) Aren't His sisters here with us?
Even a rudimentary understanding of the role of women in the 1st century will tell you they weren't much more than commodities. As much as Jesus elevated women through His ministry and gave them value and dignity, here on the front end of his ministry things in the old hometown were likely status quo.
I'll be honest... I really struggled with understanding why this statement is in this account. Really why would it matter where His sisters were? Why would having His sisters among them keep them from believing He could do miraculous things?
Here's what I think - and I'm happy to be corrected or at least engage in conversation about this - I think this statement boils down to an expectation of enough, maybe even less than enough. Could it be that it signifies an attitude of being ok with less than God's best for us - the pendulum swing from a prosperity gospel to a poverty gospel neither of which can be completely supported scripturally. We don't need Him to do miraculous things for us. We have this meager, less-than-God's-best amount and we'll just get by.
I am by no means all about prosperity and neither am I about poverty, but I believe God wants far more for us that we have the guts to ask for. And our willingness to accept what could be viewed as just His leftovers will dam up the work of God in our life and keep us from experiencing His miraculous provision and blessing on our life.
So when it comes to God's work in your life - in you or through you - what are you expectations? How have you been hindering Him from working miraculously in your life? Trying too hard to make sense of things? Settling for a religion of good works instead of God's power? Expecting Him to only do what you've seen Him do, in only the manner you've experienced? Assuming His best is for other people while you just make do? Whatever the dam, I pray God helps us remove it so that His glory can be vividly revealed in our lives.