As individuals and particularly as believers in God, we live with a certain kind of expectancy, of knowledge that God had destined us for great things. We know, like Abraham, that often, the details of His calling would be revealed in different seasons; and like him, we hope to make good our callings.

In the Lord’s prayer, we find a summation of our vocation – the things that God expects of us:

  1. To hallow His name – a life of worship
  2. To Seek His Kingdom – i.e. to do His Will
  3. To forgive (love) and
  4. To pray

These things summarise the entirety of what should be our preoccupation and great men in God’s sight are judged by how well they fared on these pillars. For today, we would focus on the parts of these that constitute works – the dedication to a life of worship, the deliberate commitment to seek out and to pursue His will; the conscious work of loving our neighbours and the discipline of prayer.

In these areas, we find lethargies and proclivities that often seem to hinder us from committing to their fulfillment. We find things like procrastination, fears and the many uncertainties that seem to distract us from our ultimate callings. Particularly in committing to the things God wants us to do with our lives. Many times, we live a lifetime fleeing from that pursuit, scared and hindered from even starting out.

We do this, sometimes, because of how we’ve come to define starting.

Starting

For many of us, starting is that big day, the day we leave our jobs for the business foray, the day we resign to start a Ministry or the day we launch that project. We think of starting in terms of the spectacular; yet, we find in Scripture that this perspective is very different from how God starts with us.

The Discipline

We find that God, in His interactions with men in the Scripture, displays a sense of rigour to the process of starting. With Abraham, it took Him 25 years to get him to the spectacular, yet He had started with Him. Joseph might have been surprised that the boy Jesus would learn carpentry with him, as if God had not spoken great things about him. It is often in the ordinariness of common life that we see the mystery, yet wisdom of God’s intricate commitment to the details of our lives in weaving us into the kind of men He desires, long before the spectacular moments.

The Discipline of starting is in the quality of our preparations, exercised in the days of ordinariness. The employed individual need not resign to begin, the quality of his preparation even in employment is sufficient starting. The discipline of preparation basically has 3 components:

  1. Plans
  2. Purposes
  3. Pursuits – Commitment to Execution

 

On Planning

“It is the first step that is difficult” African Proverb.

Some of the things we blame God for are a result of poor planning, a poor commitment to the process of considerations of the things we desire long before the big-day. Businesses, careers, marriages, and entire lives are engaged daily without adequate planning. Before God made man, there was a deliberate commitment to a plan, purpose and the pursuit of same. In fact, the pursuit is still on-going.

We can trace the root of the many areas in our lives in which we’ve difficulties to a poor starting. Often, we may never prepare enough, yet, we are much better off by preparing.

Now, the vision must be clear and we must be committed to execution. A plan helps us consider the many variables that could interfere with our purposes and to make provisions for them. Personally, I’ve found out that I do better financially when I have a budget. It is like God blesses an ordered request much more than He blesses an unordered one. Almost every time that I had first drawn a budget before going to God in prayers for my needs, I’ve had my request met.

Generally, a difficult task could be made easier with the right starting.

The quality of a farmer’s harvest can be predicted from the quality of the preparation; our starting is not an effort in futility but are rather ordered steps to a desired productivity. The reality of our pursuit demands a diligent commitment to the processes that would yield it.

Starting Again

Have you failed before?

You can start again; even the first poor starting could be made parts of the preparatory steps for our second starting.

Yes, you can start that career or business again.

That relationship can start again. Yes, you can find true love again.

That project can be started again.

To ensure that we have a disciplined start we must ensure the following:

  1. Clarity of Vision
  2. Sufficient and Continuous Capacity Development
  3. Uncluttered Execution.

 

Purpose: A Virtue that is Right

Our purposes must be the purposes of God; which is love. He is in a redemptive work on earth, you and I cannot be so enmeshed in any other set of activities that completely ignore this redemptive posture. To seek the Kingdom first is to align with this His purpose in everything. Much has been written about love, yet, the knowledge of it comes by allowing the Father to have His way (not our way) in us. It is required of those who must continue to love to understand that love which they have engaged would bring them home. In our worship, family, work and nation, love would compel us to certain means which when continuously engaged would yield desirable ends. The Father still smiles, He still reaches out to you, His eyes searching yours with the question, “Do you believe my love?”

Uncluttered Execution

The work of God cannot be done with the energies of the flesh; you will get tired, you will get to the end of your rope, you would weary from the demands of the vision and the toughness of the love walk. Yet, it is at this place that you will need to learn the Scriptural truth that “those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

To wait on the Lord is not idling, or sloppiness; it is a posture of the heart, to draw direction and energy from His Spirit. All who do this, will find in Him sufficient energy and ever glorious renewals as they engage the work of living His purpose.

May you, by God’s grace, live with a vision that is clear, a virtue that is right and a victory that is certain.

God bless you.