God is always the Initiator

Orphans always feel like everything is up to them, nothing will get done unless they do it.  In a world that thinks like orphans there is constant pressure to handle life, it is in this backdrop that the Father speaks His words of life through Jesus.  We are bombarded in our modern world by messages of:  how to get ahead, how to get healthy, how to lose weight, how to be beautiful, how to get rich, etc...  All these assume one core truth, there is no loving Father who has already made provision for your deepest desires and needs.  I was struck by this in my own life, when a deep need of my heart came up and I was amazed that a root belief is "it's all up to me".  It is in this backdrop of being bombarded that Jesus invites us into rest.  During His time it wasn't the same exact messages that were being hurled at people, there was a ton of obligation in the religious world.  They had taken God's laws, which they believed fulfilling them would please God, and added over 600+ rules.

God is always the Initiator, He is the One who began the plan to save us from our eternal death.  Since saving was all God's idea that we had nothing to do with it, our ongoing salvation and saving is what He continues to initiate.  Imagine God saying, "I know I did a good job getting you "born again" but now the rest of your journey is completely up to you."  Yet this is often how we live.  Paul confronts the church in Galatia in Galatians 3 that having begun in the Spirit are they now being perfected by the flesh.  It is an offense to our pride and a death blow to say that we are always to be the Responders to God, He is always the Initiator.  Christ in us who is the One who is outrageously creative, who gives us our "good ideas", did you really think the idea came to you apart from God.

Romans 5:8 is so encouraging, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,Christ died for us."  We see that love initiates salvation when we were not looking for it, because we were sinners (consumed with ourselves and sin, not alive to God).  This is such good news because God is unchanging in His character, which means that since salvation was all His idea He continues to initiate your salvation on a daily basis.  This is a huge relief for me, like the day God revealed that when Jesus proclaimed "Our Father" that He took responsibility on Himself to Father us for all eternity.  Jesus saying that the Father is the Vinedresser in John 15 means that He is the One who is perfecting, changing, pruning, and transforming us.  Our response is to surrender and submit ourselves to Father's work in us, which includes in every situation that comes into our lives (God causes all things to work together for our good.....).

God being Initiator frees us from needing to initiate everything in our lives and brings us into a beautiful place of child-like dependence on God.

Resting in Father's Love,
Bret