August 5, 2011

What Is Your Default Mode?

The default mode is the way something or someone responds to a situation. It's built in; it's the programming. Default settings are great on a computer because if we screw something up, we can click the default button & it restores all the original settings to whatever we're working on. Then we can make adjustments as needed.
The question we need to ask is "What is our default mode?" Spiritually speaking, what is your default response to God's prompting or leading in a situation. The reason I ask this is because I've seen far too many people who operate with the default setting of "No!" Sure, they've always got a good reason. It might be money, time, risk, or a whole host of other reasons, but the real problem is that their default setting is "No". They don't slow down enough to consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, God might want them to move forward in spite of all the really good reasons not to. They don't stop & remember that God is bigger than even their best reasons to stay where they are.

Can I get a little personal here? Parents, we're the worst about this. Too often we allow the parental instinct to protect override our trust in God. In the process, we protect & shield our children from the blessings of following God radically. See, we know that radical faith, trust, & obedience leads us to do things that are crazy, expensive, time consuming, & even dangerous in our pursuit of God. So we retreat to our default mode of "NO!", & we have great reasons to say "No", but don't we serve a God who is more than capable of dealing with our reasons "why not"?

I'm not saying that we need to completely switch our default mode to "Yes"; I mean we do have to use wisdom. But if we're going to have a knee jerk response to God's promptings, shouldn't it be closer to "Yes" than "No"? Shouldn't we at least be open to the possibility that God might want to do something amazing in our lives or the lives of our children in spite of the long list of reasons why we think it might not "work"?

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