Me and my husband just had our family prayer today, it being Tuesday. We try to be consistent in our prayer life but for some reason, all that stress in work, traveling to office and home, cooking etc just takes away all our energy and time. This has been a struggle for most of us and everyone understands where i am coming from.
In one of the books in the Bible, Paul encourages Tent Making. This term is used especially in Christian circle, where missionaries and evangelists are encouraged and motivated to work for their own bread. Paul made sense by saying he, being a tent maker himself, didn't want to be a burden to any other brother. So the trend is still followed by most ministers and evangelists. We have church pastors who owns IT companies, some make music albums, some teach and others have their wives working as teachers or home based caterers while they dedicate full time for God's good works. This doesn't mean they don't believe or depend on God's providence. Wherever we are placed, it is God's will and purpose for us in that place.
The reason why I brought up this Tent making topic is - we get so caught up in our work/jobs that we lose focus on the greater purpose God has set before us. That this is only a tent making job for us to survive and not the "everything" in our life. I do not mean we take our responsibilites at our jobs lightly, we are still accountable for the salary we are being paid for. So, be faithful at work!
In our family devotion time, we read a passage from 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses from 1 to 6. Two things struck me from this passage - One is that God is pleased when we live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness (v2b). Two, praying for our authorities (v2a) in our company, state and country, that God will give them wisdom to take right decisions and do the right thing. God is such a perfect God that when he speaks He makes sure He is making sense. Even in these verses, the reason He wants us to live peacefully is so that we can live better lives, more godly and striving to be perfect like our God. Most important part it says here in verse 4, He wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Our Focus on Christ's purpose stay put only when we have peace of mind. For that, God wants us to pray for the basics, for people and things which really matters, though we think they dont, like our bosses' mood or our politician's intentions.
When we have the Focus we see God's vision, ie to share His good news of salvation to each and every person, that every soul be saved. That's possible only when we as His people are ready to share it!
-Rubina, 23/06/2010
