How can We know what God expects us to do?

There are so many good things that need to be done, one person cannot do them all. Much of the time we wear ourself out in good works and still end the day feeling guilty.

This is a question with which many of us struggle at some time or another. When we begin to sink under its weight, however, that is a clear signal that we need to stop and realign our perspective. We all benefit from periodic mind-renewals (Rom. 12:2). Because our culture measures people's worth by their productivity, it is easy to slip into thinking that God takes the same view. In fact God created Adam and Eve in a completed paradise, then gave them the privilege of tending it as his caretakers. Similarly, he creates us new, fully accepted and forgiven already in Christ Jesus, then invites us to serve him as he leads (Eph. 2:8-10).

It is God's job, not ours, to be in charge of the world while he patiently works out its final redemption. He allows us to join in his work -- with all the joy of a five-year-old "helping" his mother make cookies or her father mow the yard. Indeed, God wants us to be busy -- "zealous for good works" (Titus 2:14). Before we were born he envisioned what those good works would look like for each of us, then he gifted us with special abilities and temperaments needed to accomplish those very things (Ps. 139:16; Eph. 2:10). We may offer ourselves to God each new day, confident that he will fulfill his purpose in our lives and not forsake us while that is going on (Ps. 138:8).

God impressed these truths indelibly in my mind and heart one day in the late 1970's as I was praying while driving to my job as typesetter in a printshop. "Praying" is probably too generous. I was really grumbling -- explaining to God how he was wasting my talents with this particular job and reminding him of my resume. I ended my sass with an accusatory question: "Where has all this gotten me?" The answer was immediate, nonverbal and unmistakable. "You've got the question wrong," God told me. "It's not where this has gotten you, but have you been faithful with what you've been given?" That is one conversation I will never forget so long as I have a mind.

God doesn't need us to do anything. And he isn't a harsh taskmaster concerned only with productivity. He is rather a loving Father who enables what he asks, who invites us as beloved children to join in his own work -- more for enjoying the company than for any good we will do. We can actually be God's fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9)! He doesn't expect you or me to do everything. He does have just the right job in mind for each of us today. We need only ask him to reveal it to us -- then to bring him glory and ourselves enormous satisfaction by doing it.