Have you realized that every day, we wake up with a huge list of things to do, and we try to do them, but end up going to bed with half of them left undone?
We always feel like there’s something we haven’t accomplished.
So many people feel that way even towards the end of their lives.
There is always a tendency to look back and say, “ah, I wish I accomplished this when I was younger, but I just never got around to it.”
Or even worse yet, “I just didn’t find time to do it.”
Time always seems to be against us.
Someone has said about accomplishing your goals, “you have the same 24 hours in your day as Beyonce”, and someone else has added to it, “but I don’t have a personal trainer, or staff, or millions of dollars like she does.”
It’s true isn’t it? We don’t nearly have the time we need to do all that life is demanding of us in the here and the now.
Our jobs demand that we finish what has been assigned to us.
Our responsibilities in our families demand that we finish what needs to be done.
Our lives are a constant cycle of ‘do, do, do’, and we can be at it for years, and read all the time-management-strategies books in the world, and at the end still be forced to say, “but there’s so much still left to be done.”
But it’s amazing how Jesus never had that problem.
Ever noticed how He came into the world to save the sinners, but when He died, so many were still left in sin?
That He came to heal the sick, but He didn’t even heal all those who suffered with disease in His own country?
And yet, at the end of 3 years, when He knew He was going to die, He said something so powerful.
He said, as He prayed to the Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” (John 17:4)
Yup!
Jesus, who worked at His ministry for just three years, finished by saying, “I have FINISHED the work You gave me to do.”
And there lies the secret.
Jesus only did the work the Father gave Him to do. And that is how He accomplished His purpose.
Nothing else mattered.
He said it Himself in John 5:19 – “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
Imagine that.
He only did what the Father told Him to do.
Imagine where we’d be if we did just that. If we weren’t saying ‘yes’ to any and every voice that called out to us to perform, but simply listened to the Father, and did the work that He assigned to us?
Imagine all the things we’d accomplish. It may even look like nothing in the world’s eyes, but imagine how awesome it would be for us to say it, just like Jesus did – “I have finished the work You gave me to do.”
Isn’t that our call?
If the Father didn’t give it, you don’t have to do it.
Jesus spent so much time in the early hours of the morning being alone with the Father.
I believe that’s where He got His marching orders.
And I believe that’s where we’ll get ours too.
We’ll know just what we have to do, which means we’ll know that we can say ‘no’ to everything else.
And at the end of the day, or the week, or the month, the year, or even our lives, we’ll be able to say, “Father, I have finished the work You gave me to do. Thank you.”
