Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.
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"Lack of striving doesn’t mean lack of action. It just means we do all we feel we need to do but leave the results up to God."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 79.
I have such a need to be in motion at times. As I sit here writing this presentation, my leg is literally shaking. That shaking doesn't come from being nervous. It isn't happening because I have some neurological condition in my life. The shaking is an old friend to me. It brings a sense of calm that is hard to explain. There isn't a time when I can't remember letting that motion be a comfort in the good times as well as in the bad.
I have to be honest though. My wife finds that shaking quite disconcerting. There are times when we are in bed that she will ask me to stop moving because she is getting sick from the motion. Isn't it interesting how different we all are?
Action in our lives can play such powerful roles. How that action comes about and what we do with that action can be such a varied kind of thing from person to person. Just like anything else in this world, relying on action of any type when it comes to feeling good about ourselves is a strategy filled with victim thinking tendencies.
I have said before that I lean heavily on being busy as a sign that all is well in my life. When I'm not busy, I tend to get worried that something is wrong with me or with God's view of who I am. That is such a victim thinking way of looking at my life and at how God relates to me. It isn't the presence of busyness that proves that I'm OK in this world just like the lack of busyness doesn't mean that I'm not living up to some level of acceptability. Nothing in this world will ever be enough to make us find the kinds of fulfillment that a real and living relationship with God is suppose to bring.
The sad thing is that many of us look to the results of the actions we are involved in to bring a level of proof that we are OK in the eyes of others and of God Himself. It isn't that results aren't important - they are! It is just that the results of our actions have to be left up to God. Why? Because our ways are so different than His.
If I were writing the script of the life of a follower of God it would look so different from what God's reality looks like. I can't tell you how many people I have walked through life with that have had challenges God could have changed in an instant. More importantly, the kinds of changes we were praying for God to make in these people's lives would have brought a level of glory to God unlike anything any of us had ever experienced. Yet, God didn't move in the direction we wanted. Our busyness of praying to God didn't result in what we thought would bring the most glory to His name. He saw His glory coming in a different way.
That's why results have to be left up to God. We just don't have the fullness of perspective when it comes from God's view of our lives. Sure we are to go after all the goodness we can in this life. It is when we rely on the goodness to be what sustains us, or when the goodness is used a proof of who we are that results can be such a victimizing thing in the victor's life.
When it comes to living this life as a victor, today's Bible reading shows us the way.
For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.
Teach me your way, Lord,
that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever. Psalm 86:10-12 (NIV)
It is as we are taught God's way that we begin to see that results are useless when it comes to our identities. God does marvelous works. Those works happen whether this life is panning out the way we want or not. It is when we let our circumstances be more than what they are suppose to be in our lives that victim thinking comes to rule over us.
If you are facing tough times right now, know this. God doesn't have it out for you. He sees you as a perfect victor in the middle of the victimizing things that are happening to your right now. He isn't punishing you for the badness in your life. He isn't trying to get you to shape up so that He can have relationship with you. You are His Child and the pain you feel, He feels as well. God is in control - hang on to Him as you go through all this world works to bring against you at times.
Bottom line is that action isn't always the answer. Yes, God may be allowing things to come into your life that will motivate you to change. Change always takes action. With that said, action isn't always what God wants in our lives. Sometimes it is in the quiet that can come with being motionless that perspective and power comes. I hope that God doesn't mind that even in those times of stillness, my leg still shakes and that brings me great comfort!
It all comes down to this. God loves you. It isn't the positive results of what you do that proves that love. It is the simple fact that God has spoken His love to you through His actions on the cross. No amount of action on our part will ever come close to the proof of our acceptability that came as a result of Jesus giving His life for you and for me.
As you set a course of action today, remember that God is the power behind the results you will experience. If what you put your hands to doesn't turn out quite the way you intended, let God be God even in that result and watch how your status as a victor comes alive no matter what your day turns out like today.
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