God Appoints Our Portion

I don't like to be interrupted. My heart is not always ready to do what God has appointed for me at the moment. I seem to forget that God appoints my portion. Most of the time I don't see it as an appointment from God but as an interruption. Those interruptions show that I have a heart that needs to be pruned because my heart should be saying “Behold, your servants are ready to do whatever my lord the king decides” (2 Samuel 15:15).

Whatever I'm doing at that moment is not more important than what God has for me. So maybe it's a phone conversation or a visitor or a child who needs attention. Maybe my husband or child needs a listening ear. Maybe dinner needs to be made, or a shirt needs to be ironed (yes I still iron ;)).

Whatever the “interruption” I need to see it not as an interruption, but as an “appointment” from the Lord. My life is not my own, but it is God's, and He ordains my days. 

God is my king and I should be ready to do whatever portion He has assigned for me at any given moment with a joyful heart.

These are not interruptions by God but appointed moments that show I'm still not grasping what it means to live all of life for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Our God is remaking us and calling us to obedience moment-by-moment and day-by-day.

It's in these little moments that He's calling me to obedience where the pruning of His loving hand takes place. Will I respond with a heart of obedience or a heart of grumbling and complaining?

I picked up a devotional book written in the 1800's called Daily Strength for Daily Needs by Mary Wilder Tilestone. I want to share with you January 14's reading which reminds us that: “God appoints our portion day by day.” 

January 14:

Thy servants are ready to do whatsoever my lord the king shall appoint.—2 Samuel 15:15

I love to think that God appoints,

My portion day by day;

Events of life are in His hand,

And I would only say,

Appoint them in Thine own good time,

And in Thine own best way.

~ A.L. Waring

If we are really, and always, and equally ready to do whatsoever the King appoints, all the trials and vexations arising from any change in His appointments, great or small, simply do not exist. If He appoints me to work there, shall I lament that I am not to work here? If He appoints me to wait in-doors today, am I to be annoyed because I am not to work out-of-doors? If I meant to write His messages this morning, shall I grumble because he sends interrupting visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to speak them, or “show kindness” for His sake, or at least obey His command, “Be courteous?” If all my members are really at His disposal, why should I put out if today's appointment is some simple work for my hands or errands for my feet, instead of some seemingly more important doing of head or tongue?

~ F. R. Havergal

*Above excerpt is taken from Daily Strength for Daily Needs: The Classic Devotional (Annotated) by Mary Wilder Tileston, January 14th.

Closing Thoughts:

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.  ~ Proverbs 16:9

Our days may not always go as we expected but may we continually be reminded that God is still in control and is using all things for our good (Romans 8:28). He can bring glory to Himself through what we may call “interruptions” when we see them as opportunities He has put before us to walk in obedience.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.”
~ C.S. Lewis