When God’s Assistance Meets Your Efforts
By doing what I have to do, I believe that I am giving God’s ability the room to do what God wants to do.
We live in a world of diverse belief systems. We all grew up with one indoctrination or another. While we keep growing and bagging experiences, we find reasons to question some of these things that we were taught but also reasons to hold on to some of them firmly.
In a world where there are so many struggles and failures, it is easy to think that there is no God with the logic that a loving God cannot watch us struggle and fail. Those who don’t want to nurse the idea of atheism may tend to think that God simply left us on our own to just do our thing. They think it is none of God’s business whether we fail or succeed.
Somehow, what we believe ends up shaping our experiences, offering us directions that we must follow. It often determines whom we give credit for our success. That is why we see people who say “I truly deserve it! I have worked all night and day for it. I am super proud of myself” and you also see those who say “I give God all the praise. Left for me alone, I wouldn’t have made it!”
I believe in God’s capability to take me further miles more than my attempts would have taken me. I believe in God’s divine assistance to give me favour and acceptance among men more than my eligibilities would have gotten me. I believe in God’s ability to save me from troubles including the ones I got myself into.
I believe that my little efforts can serve as a channel through which God’s blessings can find expression. So, while I believe, pray and hope on God’s divine assistance at all times, I also do not downplay the place of efforts, consistency, diligence, honesty, sacrifice and learning.
Putting in my effort means obeying God’s word and obeying the natural principles at work. There is a time for seed sowing and I must not neglect that time simply because I hope on God to bless me. No, God has already blessed me with a time, he had already blessed me with a seed, he has already blessed me with the opportunity to plant my seed. Laziness to do the needful equals faithlessness.
When I get myself into trouble, I believe that God can save me from it. However, I do not relax, refusing to make peace with others. I do not refuse to have a rethink and a change of character. God does not pamper us into destruction, neither does he sponsor us to keep hurting others. The people we offend or hurt are also God’s children.
If I should believe in the God of the harvest, I should do what he has set me up to do; to sow my seeds at seed times and wait for the harvest where he brings the increase. I am the one holding God from causing my seeds to increase when I don’t sow. This is because there should be a channel through which this increase should flow.
We must also note that God takes us through processes. He trains us to know how to manage what we have and what he will give us. He provides us with resources that we can account for if we believe him. Some people made wealth by simply following the natural rules and principles of wealth creation. Yet, these people didn’t believe in God.
The idea of believing in God isn’t to compete and beat wealthy people. It is not to finance your fleshy desires or to become the richest man or woman on earth. It is simply because that’s what you’ve got to do as a believer in Jesus. God is your advantage even as you do all that you have to do. You can trust the advantage you have in God as you take baby steps.
By doing what I have to do, I believe that I am giving God’s ability the room to do what God wants to do. If I ask that God fill my cup but do not make my cup available for him to fill, I am the enemy of progress here.
Paul writes in “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” — Colossians 3:23
I work, then I pray and believe. After praying, I work yet again and the cycle continues as I believe that God’s word will make me what it talks about. Success is inevitable when God’s divine assistance meets efforts.
Originally Publishing on George’s Diary
