My day in connectedness

I had wanted to blog about my #1 Gallup theme Connectedness but I couldn't quite put it in place until now.

People with the Connectedness theme do not really take coincidences as given. We can almost believe that coincidences does not exist. Everything happens for a reason and almost everything and everyone is connected in one way or another.

Something quite significant happened with my #1 and #2 themes today - Connectedness and Intellection.

I was blogging yesterday about my exceptionally busy start to the new year at work and these two words came to mind as I wrote. I do experience cases where words I seldom or may have never used just come and I would wonder where it came from.

Two simple words - let up - not used so frequently to me and when it came to me yesterday, I did check the dictionary to ensure I was using it accurately. I was. I had described the fact that my busy days would not let up and with that, I'm almost drowning.

That was yesterday.

This morning, as I was doing my devotion, the same two words was used in the materials I was reading.

I was reading on Isaiah 33 where the prophet was lamenting on the stubbornness of the Israelites who would not obey or trust in God.

The Assyrians were coming against them but they disobeyed God and looked to the Egyptians to save them. It was like going back to their slave masters for freedom. What irony.

When the Egyptians were of no help, they thought the could buy the Assyrians off. They withdrew money from the treasury, stripped bare the temple doors of gold to be given to the Assyrians to leave them alone. The author rightly stated that it was humiliating to Judah and doubly dishonoring to God. The people treated God as their worthless ally and then make God pay for their disloyalty!

Then the author said, "But they don’t see it that way. Not yet. What they see is hope: “Finally those Assyrians will let up on us! This will all be over soon.” So there goes God’s money, God’s honor, and their integrity in the form of payment to the Assyrian mafia." (emphasis mine)

When I read that sentence, it stopped me short. I felt that this was no simple coincidence, there must be something to it and I immediately asked the Lord what the lesson here for me would be.

It was a simple connection.

My busy days were not letting up. The Assyrians were not letting up. The Israelites had not trusted God. Have I trusted God? I was complaining. I was frustrated.

I reassessed my situation and realised that my busyness may never let up, however much I complain. What I need to do instead is to trust in God. That it is not by might, nor by power but by His Spirit.

As a result, when I committed it all to Him, I had more fun at work today in spite of my busyness. So much so that I was contented to stay back late into the evening in order to clear my inbox before I call it a day, before I call it a week.

I thank God for his promptings. I thank God for his everlasting Word that will never fail us.

He is faithful and good.

pearlie
Source: 'Isaiah: God Saves Sinners' by Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., R.Kent Hughes, General Editor