Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Ephesians 5:17 (NIV)
The Will He Already Named
“Just tell me the rule,” the new hire says, and he means it kindly. He’s been at the barn since spring and he wants something he can put in his pocket. The woman who runs the place knows a horse is off by how it stands at the rail before light, and by where the ears go when she comes around the corner with the halter, and she can’t write that down for him.
He wants the will of the Lord the same way, as a location. There is a right job and a right year to move. On his reading it has been put somewhere out of sight, and the work of the Christian life is to find out where before you ruin everything by guessing.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Paul names that will plainly, and he names it for everyone reading. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Then he keeps naming it: speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing and making music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You do every one of those again tomorrow, and the day after that. Thanks given for everything is a practice before it is a feeling, and it can be done this morning, before anything about the day is settled.
The woman at the barn has an ear for it, and it came from coming out in the dark and doing the same small things in the same order until the horses stopped being a subject and became animals she knew. She uses it on a morning when one of them is off.
You can give thanks for one thing this morning without knowing a single thing about the rest of the day.
A Prayer to Remember
Lord, I’ve spent a lot of years asking you where to go, and not many of them doing the plain things you already named. I knew what they were the whole time and I kept asking the question that was easier. Teach me to want what you want.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
