Day 21 – Formulas

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes."
Psalm 37:3-7

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself wishing that life had a formula. It seems like everything else in life has a formula. If you eat right and exercise, you will be healthy. If you study hard and apply yourself, you will do well in school. If you follow the map precisely, then you will get to your destination. If you do a, then b will happen. Formulas.

But when it comes to life, there doesn’t seem to be any formulas. You can do good every chance you get and still have bad things happen to you. You can be kind and still have people not treat you well. You can try to raise your kids the best way you know how and still they can walk away from what is right. Just because you do a doesn’t guarantee that you will get b. Life is simply unpredictable.

And when it comes to relationship with God, it doesn’t seem to get better. But perhaps it’s because we are looking for formulas when God is wanting us to look for Him. We like formulas because they give us some predictability in life. If I obey God, He will bless me. If I don’t obey God, He will not bless me. But there is a subtle flaw in this logic. The focus in this situation is not God…it’s me. Perhaps God doesn’t give us formulas because He knows that we have a tendency to make them all about us rather than making them all about Him. Let’s look at the passage above as an example.

At first glance, we would say that this is a formula: if we trust in the Lord and do good then we will dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture; if we delight ourselves in the Lord then He will give us the desires of our heart; etc. But again, that would make this passage about us. When we come to prayer and to the Scriptures, we must realize that everything is about Him, not us. The goal of the passage above is not to dwell in the land, or get the desires of our heart, or to get our righteousness to shine like the dawn. The goal of the passage above is for us to trust in the Lord, to delight in Him, to commit our ways to Him, and to be still before Him. When these things are true about us, we won’t be worried about whether or not the other things come. When we make that our a, we won’t need a b to make us happy. Because the a is the goal for us, not a means to get to b. God is our goal, not His benefits.

So as we come to the end of this 21-day journey, let’s always remember that God is the goal of our prayers, of our devotion, of our passion, of our lives. Hebrews 11:6 says “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” And what is that reward? Him! He is our very great reward! He is our joy, our hope and our life! He is all we need! When God is our goal, we become satisfied even when the circumstances of life are not what we had hoped. Life does have a formula – Seek God first and foremost and He will reveal Himself to you. He may not bring you the answers to all your questions and He may not fix all of your problems. But that’s okay. He will reveal Himself to you! And that, my friend, is all you will ever need.

As you pray, allow these thoughts to prompt your conversation with God.

• Thank God that He is always looking for someone who’s heart is completely His (2 Chronicles 16:9).
• Thank God that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
• Ask God to give you a heart to seek Him above all the other things in your life.
• Ask God to help you to continue on in your prayer journey with Him and to continue seeking Him in His Word.
• Ask God for the strength and commitment to make praying to Him a daily discipline in your life.
• Ask God to bring someone to your heart who can keep you accountable to consistency in your prayer life.