Lord, Bid Me Come!
by Kellie Copeland Swisher
Over the last year, I’ve realized that I had some wrong attitudes about directions the Lord has given me. For a while now, the Lord has laid things on my heart that He wanted me to do and instead of stepping out and doing them immediately, I took the attitude, “One day I’ll do that.” I hesitated. I stood on the sidelines.
Praise God for His correction and grace because I’m no longer hesitating! I’m no longer on the sidelines. Instead, I’m like the disciple Peter…standing…ready to do all God has called me to do. Instead of saying, “One day I’ll do that,” I’m saying, “Lord, bid me come. I’m ready!”
Obedience as Worship
Each of us has a primary mode of worship—obedience. That’s what the whole Bible is about. It’s about us giving ourselves—our thoughts, our ideas and our ways—to the Lord. He is the boss. It’s a fact—He doesn’t need to prove it. And if we allow Him to be in charge, He will bless us. He will fulfill an amazing plan for our lives.
However, if we assume we can handle everything ourselves or if we think we’ve rolled the cares of this life onto the Lord when really we’ve simply tucked them into our back pockets, we’ll experience stress. Of course, giving a situation over to the Lord doesn’t mean we won’t take action. We may or may not, but our actions won’t be decided by us. They will be decided by Him. He will say what we are to do.
We can learn this by Jesus’ example.
When Jesus was on the earth, He relied on His heavenly Father for direction. He said, “I am able to do nothing from Myself [independently, of My own accord—but only as I am taught by God and as I get His orders]” (John 5:30, "The Amplified Bible"). And since we are to be imitators of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), we should listen to our heavenly Father and obey just as Jesus did.
Make It a Lifestyle
Look at Proverbs 22:17: “Listen (consent and submit) to the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge” ("AMP").
We can’t let the Lord’s direction go in one ear and out the other, or hear without the intention of obeying what we hear. Neither qualifies as listening.
Once we “apply our minds” to hear the Lord’s direction—as this scripture says—then we must lay hold of it. We have to make the decision to say, “I believe what the Lord has said to me, and I’m going to do it.”
BVOV : 23
