Living Out Of The Wrong Bag

I received this Devotional today ~ this is one to share


The Word for Today
with Bob Gass



Living Out Of The Wrong Bag

Make sure you understand what the Master wants.
Ephesians 5:17


Have you ever mistakenly picked somebody else's luggage off a conveyor belt at the airport and taken it home? Two seconds after opening it up you discovered - you can't live out of somebody else's bag! You can't wear their clothes or fit into their shoes.

So why do we try to? Parents! Dad says "Son, your granddad was a farmer, I'm a farmer, and some day you'll inherit the farm." Teachers! A teacher warns a young girl who wants to be a stay-at-home mum, "Don't squander your life. With your gifts you could make it to the top." Church leaders! "Jesus was a missionary. Do you want to please Him? Spend your life on foreign soil." Sound counsel or poor advice? That depends on what God packed in your bag. What if God made the farmer's son with a passion for literature or medicine? Or gave that girl a love for children and homemaking? If foreign cultures frustrate you while predictability invigorates you, what are the chances you'd be a happy missionary? "All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16).

God gives us eyes for organisation, ears for music, hearts that beat for justice, minds that understand physics, hands that love care-giving, legs that run and win races. Secular thinking doesn't buy this. It sees no author behind the book and no purpose behind or beyond life. It says "You can be anything you want to be." Wrong! Don't make their mistake. Don't live carelessly or unthinkingly. "Make sure you understand what the Master wants."