Productivity

Our reading of today literally forces me to stop and take stock of my efforts for the kingdom.

Moses and the elders, including Joshua approach the presence of God on Mount Sinai. God further beckons only Moses to come even nearer, while Joshua his aide accompanies him. 7 days of exclusive consecration and isolation ensues. Finally God speaks to Moses and begins to give him a detailed blueprint of the tabernacle.

My blurb today can be themed Presence before Production.

God never calls us to be productive. He calls us to know him. John 15 encapsulates this message very powerfully in the New Testament. Paradoxically, while God calls us to be fruitful, yet he calls us to be still and know his presence (Psalms 46:10).

The disciples approached Jesus with deep piety and wondered what the greatest activity one could take on for the cause. They must have been utterly dumbfounded by his simple answer: “To know him” (John 6:28-29).

As Moses and the elders sought God’s presence simply for the sake of God’s presence, nothing concealed, without agenda, releasing the terms of the relationship solely to God, then God surprises them with a crisp clear vision of the tabernacle.

While we do not seek God for things, ministry, or anything else, the biblically inevitable result of such activity is productivity.

My journey as one who is task oriented is constantly to base all I do in seeking the presence of God. As I seek Him first daily, I allow him to put promptings in my heart of clear and often detailed activity that He would like me to accomplish. When stresses, time constraints, self-imposed goals and objectives try to steal you and I away from God’s presence, may the nagging sense of emptiness continually drive us to forsake self and seek his presence. For in his presence we find purpose, and ultimately true productivity.