Good morning…
“Let’s say I’m a plumber,” said Dallas Wallard during an interview with Jan Johnson, “and I’m going to clean out someone’s sewer. How will I do this as Jesus would do it? If you encounter difficulties with the people you’re serving or with the pipe or machinery, you never fight that battle alone. You invoke the presence of God. You expect to see something happen that is not the result of you.”
The wise interview continued: “If you train yourself to thank God when those “coincidences” happen, you’ll see them as patterns in your life. The crucial thing is to be attentive to God’s hand, not to be locked into one-on-one thinking. It’s me and the pipe! Never do that. But it takes training not to do that. A person has to train himself to think, Now this is a time to praise God for the solution that just came to me. That’s called ‘life in God’.”
Willard concluded: “Training brings you to the point where you don’t have to say, “I have to pay attention!” You routinely think, This is an occasion when God is present. This is a time to pray, to praise.” (Jan Johnson’s When The Soul Listens, 145)
It helps us to recognize we are not alone. It is never just “me and this pipe,” “me and this person,” “me and this problem.” When we invoke the power of the God who is with us, we expect to see something happen that is not our doing. What a joy to expand into our “with God life.” We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! (Acts 17:28, MSG).
…Sue…
