Day One Hundred Eighty-Two “Regardless”
If you are fortunate enough to reside alongside the warm beaches of Florida, or on the sunny coast of California, the term spinning your wheels may not be as meaningful to you. Unless you have been entrenched in a snowdrift, during a blinding snow storm, while the temperatures are hovering in the you-gotta-be-kidding zone, you can’t be fully aware of the proper spinning you wheels protocol. So here’s what you do when you are hopelessly stuck in that slippery ditch: apply enough gas to move the car forward a bit, drift back, apply gas, drift back, creating a continual rocking motion. When that doesn’t work, engage Plan B: place any available item from inside the car (with the exception of any fellow passengers or pets) under the stuck tire to provide traction and retry Plan A. When that doesn’t work, use Plan C: cry helplessly, look pathetic, and wish that you lived in Florida.
The phrase spinning your wheels is defined as wasting one’s time or energy idly or frivolously; to neither progress or regress; to expend effort without achieving anything. Have you been there? Have you expended your best efforts in your home, at your job, or for the cause of Christ, but felt those efforts have had little results? I certainly have, so this story is such an encouragement for me.
Ezekiel was under God’s direct command to warn his fellow countrymen of impending judgment, all while being told in advance by the Lord that the people to whom he would minister “would not hearken.” Do your best to spread my Word, Ezekiel, be faithful, but no one will listen to you. Wow, talk about spinning those wheels! But regardless of the results, Ezekiel, “warn the wicked…warn the righteous.” And if you don’t warn them, My son, “his blood will I require at thine hand.” But if you faithfully perform that which I have commissioned you to do, and they don’t heed the warning, “thou hast delivered thine hand,” My dear child. Your responsibility is to obey, Mine is to produce the fruit. Your instructions are simple, “speak to them…whether they will hear, or whether they forbear.” Do my will, regardless of the outcome.
I love that thought: I obey, He produces. We are simply branches, we cannot produce the fruit, for that is the job of the True Vine, the Holy Spirit working through us. Our requirements are to submit to the Father’s will for our lives, to obey His great commission to spread the gospel, to empty ourselves of self-will, to afford Him our best efforts, and to be faithful. If you are quietly fulfilling God’s work, but feel as though you are spinning your wheels, stay faithful, regardless of the earthly outcome. Only eternity will reveal the fruits of your labor.
I Corinthians 4:2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
Lord, sometimes we all feel as though we are spinning my wheels while trying to fulfill Your will. Help me to remember that fruit production is Your responsibility, my job is to be faithful.
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