Have you ever had to work under a micro-manager? You know the kind- always watching everything you do, checking every little detail, making you feel like you don’t know what you are doing?
And that leads you to ask yourself, “Doesn’t he have anything else to do?”
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God knows every, little thing we do. He knows what is in our hearts, and he knows our thoughts before we do.
That sounds to me like the ultimate micro-manager.
But God doesn’t micro-manage us, even though he can. Yes, he controls our lives (if we ask him to) and he also can make anything happen, but does he really get that involved?
I mean, I know he has plenty of other things to do than to watch me 24/7/365.
And we read in the Bible how God has made things happen in people’s lives, both to help them and to punish them. We also know that if we reject him, he will reject us.
I believe when we read about the curses we will have to suffer for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28), that God doesn’t actively do bad things to us, he just removes his protection and leaves us alone to suffer what the world will do to us.
God is not a micro-manager or a helicopter parent, but he is always available to us when and if we need him, but only if we ask him. That’s why I say even though God can control every aspect of our lives, he doesn’t.
It’s all part of that Free Will thing.
Of course, if he has a specific plan for us, he will intercede and even interfere as he deems necessary, but still, if we reject the call, he will simply find somebody else.
Do you recall from the Bible all the stories about all those people who rejected God’s call? No? Not one? You might say Jonah, but he came around and did as God wanted him to do.
Everyone else who chose to reject God’s calling never got mentioned the Bible, and probably won’t make it into his presence after Judgement Day, either.
I was in management for most of my career, working in different jobs for different companies, and I learned that you need to let people make their own mistakes. I have always felt a good manager can correct what little things go wrong, and prevent the really big ones from happening by interfering at the right time. But watching what people do doesn’t have to mean standing over their shoulders.
God is always watching us, he is always concerned, and I believe he feels really bad when we reject his help, which is more easily done than you might think: you don’t need to ask him to stay out of it, you simply need to not include him from the start.
One of the biggest lies from the pit of Sheol is: “God helps those who help themselves.”
The truth is when I try to do it on my own, I am telling God to mind his own business, and I am left at that point to face the entire world, on my own.
The result is always a foregone conclusion: if it is me against the world, I will lose.
And God will allow me to lose, but what is really great about him is that if I repent of my prideful and stubborn attitude, humbly come before God and ask that he help me get out of the mess I created, he will.
So, remember this: in every endeavor you need to first ask God to work with you. Even when I just go for a bike ride, and even though I stay on the sidewalks as much as possible, I try to remember to ask God to watch out for me before I even get on the bicycle.
Nothing- absolutely nothing- is so unimportant that we shouldn’t ask God to help us.
There is an old saying that it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, and in the human world, I believe that is best.
But when it comes to God, always ask first.
Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!