Bit-by-Bit Living - Martin Wiles

One day the Lord said to Moses, “Climb one of the mountains east of the river, and look out over the land I have given the people of Israel. Numbers 27:12 NLT

As a preacher’s kid, I moved more times than I care to count. Dad didn’t stay at any one church long. Every two or three years—sometimes after only one year—I’d get the news we planned to move. This made making friends difficult. Eventually, I didn’t care much about making friends. After all, I’d be leaving soon. But I made it through all the moves. 

A few years after graduating high school, I became a preacher and started the moving process all over again. Although I didn’t move as often as Dad, I did move every five or six years—and occasionally sooner than that.

n my younger years, moving proved easy—at least from a physical standpoint. As I got older, things changed. Aches and pains crept in. Backaches mainly, which made lifting difficult. And who can move without doing a lot of lifting?

By the time I neared retirement age, I hoped my wife and I had put moving behind us. Not so. A better deal came up. We feared our landlord might sell our patio townhome because it needed so many repairs. Another couple who was our age owned a unit three doors down. I didn’t want to move, but they were searching for long-term tenants, and we were their choice. After listening to their offer, I gave in to my wife’s pleadings.

Then came the fun. Fortunately, our new landlords gave us an entire month to move. We had already paid our rent at our old home, no one lived in the one we planned to move into, and our new landlords didn’t care if we moved in bit by bit. For two people with backaches, foot aches, shoulder aches, and about every other ache one can imagine, we were glad we didn’t have to move in one day or even a weekend.

Moses was a bit-by-bit kind of guy, too, when carrying out God’s plan. God wanted him to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian slavery, but he didn’t make Moses do it in a weekend—or even in a week or year. God’s plan started with Pharaoh’s daughter saving Moses from certain death when he was just a baby. Then, the plan entailed Moses spending forty years on the back side of a desert tending his father-in-law’s sheep. From there, the plan entailed many plagues on the Egyptians, crossing the Red Sea, disobedience, and forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Bit by bit, Moses obeyed God’s plan, which helped him from becoming overwhelmed and giving up. In the end, he died before leading the Israelites into the Promised Land—the price he had to pay for disobeying along the way.

God’s plans for us can often seem overwhelming—or even something we don’t want to do. Moses wasn’t excited about God’s plan in the beginning. But just as my wife and I didn’t have to move in short order, God often gives us years to accomplish his plan. His timetable is quite different from ours. He knows our human nature to fear, feel overwhelmed, manipulate, and control. Fortunately, he’s patient as we move along with his plan, giving us time to come around to his way of thinking, doing things, and working through our fears and doubts.

In the final account, what makes us successful involves faith. We walk by faith. We live by faith. Any other way leads to failure, as it did with Moses when he chose to strike a rock to attain water for the people when God told him to speak to it. Through mounds of prayer and tons of trust, we let God guide us to carry out his work—in his way and according to his timetable. He drives fear away, teaches us to let him take the lead, and does more through us than we could ever imagine. This way, he gets the credit, and we keep pride out of our lives.

Rather than trying to run ahead of God—or do too much at one time—let God help you accomplish his plan bit by bit.

 

Father, thank you for your patience as I carry out your plan. 

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Pursuing Friendship - Martin Wiles

Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house. Job 29:4 NIV

My friends numbered few.

Dad began preaching when I was just a young fellow. Snippets of him driving an ice cream truck like his father and of him working in a Western Auto store are the only earlier memories I have. And with the preaching came moving. Dad was a restless sort. Twenty years was his longest tenure, and by the time he did that, I had left home long before. When I lived with him and Mom, he moved every two or three years, sometimes after only one year. 

Making friends amidst the transitions proved difficult. So did remembering teachers and schools. Both have blurred into that part of my memory I can no longer access. From kindergarten to eighth grade, I remember only a handful of friends. From high school, another handful. None of which have I kept up with through the years. 

Nor did college differ—and I suppose that is my fault. I recall a few friends from those four years, none of which I’ve contacted since graduation. My resilience against making friends while growing up tainted my adult life. After all, I followed in dear old Dad’s footsteps and moved around a good bit myself. 

Only one almost life-long friend comes to mind. He and I met shortly after graduating high school when we went to work at the same metal fabrication plant. We were the same age and seemed to hit it off immediately. Although the miles have separated us since then—and our career paths have taken us in different directions—we remain in contact. I’ve made many other friends and casual acquaintances during my lifetime, but his friendship I hold the dearest.  

Friendship is touchy business. Job discovered this when hard times hit him and his family. Several of his friends showed up to comfort him—but turned out to be miserable comforters. The only advice they could give was that he should repent of whatever sin he had committed that was causing his misery. They talked too much—and listened too little. He ignored their advice and went on with life. Although they told him God brought his misery, Job didn’t believe it. He chose to relish in his intimate friendship with God.

Fair-weather friends are usually a dime a dozen, but true friends encourage more than they rebuke, listen more than they talk, are heavy on presence and light on advice, and don’t pretend to understand all the emotions we face during troubling times. They hang around in the good and bad times. 

But the most comforting friend is God. No other person can do for us what He can. He is the friend extraordinaire. Always there. Always ready to listen. Never too busy. 

Father, thank You for being a friend who sticks closer than a brother or a sister. 

Tweetable: Are you pursuing friendship to no avail? 

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