January 12  Be Careful What You Promise God!

Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears.'" 1 Sam. 3:8, 9, RSV.

But sometimes we don't want to hear. Such was the case of William Miller, Even though the ears of his conscience rang with the command to warn the world of danger to come, he had no desire to do so.

"I did all I could to avoid the conviction that anything was required of me; and I thought that by freely speaking of it to all. I should perform my duty, and that God would raise up the necessary instrumentality for the accomplishment of the work. I prayed that some minister might see the truth, and devote himself to its promulgation."

Now, there's a handy solution. Get some minister to do our work. I have come to the conclusion that if the church relies on the ministers to "finish the work" it will take a little longer than eternity. The bad news about the good news is that God calls each of us to do our part.

But that is just what the very human William Miller didn't want to do. Hoping to witness by proxy, he eventually arrived at the Moses excuse. "I told the Lord that I was not used to public speaking, that I had not the necessary qualifications to gain the attention of an audience," and so on. But he could get no relief. For nine more years Miller struggled with the conviction that he had a task to do for God. Then one Saturday about the year 1832 he sat down at his desk to examine a detail of Bible teaching. Suddenly he felt overwhelmed with the belief that he needed to become active for the Lord.

In agony he cried out that he couldn't go.
"Why not?" came the reply.
And then he recited all of his threadbare excuses.

Finally his distress became so great that he promised God that he would perfrom his duty if he got an invitation to speak publicly on the topic of the Lord's coming. With that he experienced a sigh of relief. After all, he was 50 years old, and no one had ever asked him to present the topic before. He felt free at last. But within a half  hour he received just such an invitation. And with it came a flash anger that he had ever promised God anything. Without answering he stormed out of the house. After struggling with God and himself for about an hour, he finally agreed to preach the next day. That sermon was the beginning of one of the most fruitful ministries of the mid-nineteenth century.

The moral: Be careful what you promise God. He may have more in mind for your life than you have ever dreamed of.

Let the thoughts of Him be linked with bird and flower and tree. Lead the children to see in every pleasant and beautiful thing an expression of God's love for them. Recommend your religion to them by its pleasantness. Let the law of kindness be in your lips(TFMB 98).