God does the work!

Yesterday afternoon God answered prayer with another surprise. My 28 year-old Bernini sewing machine has never had a problem but suddenly the lights over the sewing area stopped working. New bulbs didn’t help so I took it to the dealer. They tried. Nothing worked. Finally a clerk said leaving it for service would be very costly because opening it up to find an electrical problem constituted a regular and costly service call. Not only that, they haven’t had parts for that model since 2011. My best bet was to buy an external light to clip on my sewing table.

About to do that, the store’s regular technician came in. He praised my machine, asked what was wrong, fiddled with it, then said it was the light switch. He asked how much money I had, and told me “How about a report on social media?” Then he said, “I have no switches for this, but I’ve learned to hot-wire it.” In a few minutes, he took the machine apart, did something I could not see, put it back together, and the lights went on!

I’ve never hugged a clerk and a technician before, or told them how I’d prayed on the way to the store, but this was such a blessing to me, and a total surprise that cost me only a few words.

Then I got another one this morning, well two of them. When my computer does the unexpected, I’m usually frustrated and even angry. Today, the wireless keyboard just quit. Batteries were okay, but it disconnected from bluetooth and would not reconnect. After more than an hour and using my i-pad to get help, it worked. A test? I often get them after a blessing. Then after this test of my patience, another blessing.

This year’s devotional book has often been frustrating because the author writes as if a Christian’s will is vital before God does anything, and while my decisions are vital and necessary, this writer thinks it is more up to me than up to God to change my life. Today, this reading blessed me so much. I am passing it on as an illustration of this favorite passage:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

The reading says…
   The Lord is leading me on, step by step. He has created in me a willingness and ability to consecrate myself to Him, to be His wholly and forever—to be His, not only in some of the special circumstances of my life or in some of the activities of my soul, but to be His myself—to abandon my whole self to Him, with all my powers and all my circumstances, to resign my whole will to Him without any possible reservation.
   He has now taught me that He himself has taken possession of me, and that He is having His own way in me, to make me just what He pleases. “This is His will, even my sanctification” ….therefore, if He has possession of me, it is impossible that He should leave me unsanctified for a single moment. It was only myself who hindered the work; and if I give myself up to Him, the work must be accomplished. I cannot but believe it. An actual transaction has taken place between God and my soul. I have abandoned myself to Him; so He has taken possession of me and—I must believe it—has sanctified me.
   A real work has taken place: on my part, consecration; on the Lord’s part, sanctification. For it is all His work from beginning to end! I say my part because the conscious asking of my soul was to give itself up; but it was God who did it in me. It is not a belief, but a reality in which I am rejoicing. I have abandoned myself to God, and He has taken possession of me. All the rest must follow. He cannot but do His will in me, which is my sanctification.
   Blessed Lord Jesus, what a perfect work was Yours! Oh, show me more and more of its completeness!

PRAY: Jesus, when reading an old book, it often seems written recently, as if this author is still around. Not so, but the ideas are contemporary and have been discouraging and sad. I know that You are the author and finisher of my salvation and to read this today seems an answer to prayer for all those who “Are you so foolish… that they think “Having begun in the Spirit, are now being made perfect by the flesh.” (Galatians 3:3) This thrills my heart once more because You are glorified again and rightly so!