God’s Fieldwork - The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional

God’s Fieldwork

Wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest.

John 4:35

It was more than four years ago that my husband and I, with two toddlers and busy jobs, found ourselves sitting in a living room with four other families, each with young children, trying to decide whether or not we were going to launch a new church. After months of prayerful contemplation and frequent meetings, we responded to the call of God with a resounding yes and jumped into the adventure.

As my husband and I sat on our back patio one recent peaceful evening, we reflected on that simple yes, given without fully understanding the incredible journey of trust, faith, and spiritual growth we would undertake, and without fully understanding how difficult the journey would be at times.

We are so grateful we didn’t delay saying yes to God, despite how crazy our decision looked to those around us at the time. We did not understand that our saying yes would be such a pivotal, defining moment in our lives. We now measure our lives in terms of “pre–church launch” and “post–church launch.” We had no idea about the work God would do in our hearts and the way our faith would mature during the journey of launching Living Way Church.

Rarely does God wait until life is under control to invite us along on a faith adventure. Don’t miss God’s invitation to the proverbial fields ripe for harvest—the people around you who are searching for God—because you are too busy attending to earthly things that will fade away. If we are not careful, we will allow the temporary distractions in this life to become bigger and more important than the fields God has called us to tend. These are the plans that have eternal consequences for the lives around us, and it is up to us to wisely choose how we’ll spend our time.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

Prayerfully reevaluate your priorities, asking yourself which items have eternal consequences and which items are temporary, earthly distractions. Take a step to prioritize God’s fieldwork first.