I love taking those personality tests and quizzes that give you some insight into what makes you tick. For the record, depending on the test I’m taking, I’m a “beaver,” an ISTJ, a “high D,” or a “choleric.” Of course, none of these labels is 100% accurate, and a person’s personality is always changing over time (hopefully) but one thing that I’ve learned about myself is that I am a task-oriented person. This means that what drives me is completing tasks and achieving goals. Too often, I see people in terms of how they can help me accomplish those tasks and goals rather than focusing on their satisfaction and well-being like a relationship-oriented person would.
Another byproduct of being task-oriented for me is IMPATIENCE. I don’t like to wait or waste time because there is always something else to work on or some other goal to accomplish. I often miss the enjoyment of the present because I am either working too hard or I am planning for the next task or day or month. I always have a to-do list that I am working on and find it very hard to rest and recharge. God has been working on me to grow patience and especially lately, I feel that He has been trying to teach me to wait on Him. But this is difficult for me.
In “The Saving Life of Christ,” (great book!) Major Ian Thomas talks about Moses killing the Egyptian in Exodus 2 as the result of Moses committing himself to the task of freeing the Israelites rather than committing himself to God and waiting for His plan to unfold. It ending up causing Moses to flee and spend 40 years in exile before God called him back to the job. Thomas says this (I’ve combined some excerpts here):
You are not called upon to commit yourself to a need or to a task or to a field. You are called upon to commit yourself to God! It is He then who takes care of the consequences and commits you where He wants you. The reason so little is being accomplished by the church of Jesus Christ today is that we have all too often organized God out of business.
What an embarrassment it would be to you if you had a pair of hands that always tried to demonstrate how busy they were! Do you expect your fingers to tell you each morning what their program is for the day, and then demonstrate their enthusiasm by a vigorous show of uncontrolled activity? Surely what the head demands of every member of the body is restful availability and prompt response to every impulse of the head in instant obedience, producing the coordinated activity of the whole and the orderly fulfillment of that purpose to which each, as a member of the team, has been committed in particular.
The challenge we hear so often today in the name of consecration is “Do more! Give more! Be more! Go! Go! Go!” But God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” In other words, quit the panic! Just let God be God!
When Moses tried to tackle the job, he could not even bury one Egyptian successfully. When God tackled the job, He buried the whole lot of them in the Red Sea! That is how competent God is to deal with His own business.
That should give you a sense of why I am enjoying this book so much. I want to leave you with a worship song that talks about waiting on God to act. I love when my daughter, Christina, sings this one. “Waiting Here for You” by Christy Nockels.
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