CHARLO, New Brunswick, January 1, 2024 – Scripture gives us umpteen examples of people who succeed in doing God’s will and those who don’t. Jesus, of course, is the best example of someone who consistently succeeded, though even Jesus missed the mark on a few occasions. So what is it that Jesus did that most Christians don’t do? Why did Jesus succeed where most Christians fail?

Jesus (nearly) always waited for God to tell him what to do and when to do it. He didn’t rush to do things on his own initiative, no matter how good or “godly” those things looked on paper. After jumping the gun when he was twelve (and learning from his mistake), Jesus didn’t start his ministry work until God explicitly told him it was time. He had to wait 18 more years, and you can imagine the waiting wasn’t easy for Jesus, but he did it. And then, when it was time, God blessed everything Jesus did because Jesus only did whatever God showed him to do and only when God told him to do it.

So the number one reason why Christians fail is not their lack of faith or their inability to do something – it’s that they do things on their own initiative without God’s go-ahead. They embark on something (ministry work, act of charity, act of sacrifice, moving to a new city, starting a new job, starting a new relationship, etc.) and then ask God to bless it rather than wait for God’s invitation to do something. If God invites you to do something, his blessing is baked into the invitation: it’s part and parcel of it. You don’t have to ask for God’s blessing after he’s invited you to do something, you just have to thank him for it and do whatever he guides you to do. But if you instead decide to do something first and then go to God afterwards to get his blessing, he likely won’t give it to you (no matter how much you beg and plead) and you will surely fail or fall short of the mark, because God will not be helping you.

It’s important to understand that failing at something doesn’t mean that you’re out of the race altogether. What it does mean is that you need to examine why you failed so that you learn from your mistake and not do it again. Jesus, as a twelve-year-old, learned that he needed to remain under his parents’ authority and to wait for God to give him the signal that it was time to start his ministry. In the intervening years, Jesus served a sort of apprenticeship under God, learning all the spiritual skills that he later applied in his healings and teachings.

I well know what it means to fail because I’ve failed on many an occasion, wanting to do things that I thought were good in and of themselves (such as starting a Bible study years ago, only to have no-one at all show up). I have learned the difference between humiliation and humility, but more importantly I’ve learned to wait on God and to do nothing without his invitation. I have seen the blessings flow from his invitations, when I accept them, and I have lived the frustration and dead-end of zero blessings. I hope never to live that frustration again.

I love God with all my heart and I want more than anything else to do his will and his will only, like Jesus did during his time on Earth. Still, even loving God as I do, I need to wait for his prompting and guidance and do everything in his time, not mine. The children of the world have no such restrictions, but we’re not children of the world. We’re God’s children and as such we’re under God’s authority, which means we should only do what God says to do and only when and how he says to do it. We can choose not to do that, but then we’ll fail, and if we fail enough, we might not make it Home.

The number one reason why Christians fail is that they don’t wait for God’s invitation but instead rush to do things on their own initiative; the number one reason why Christians succeed is that they do wait.

Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he will strengthen thine heart.

Wait, I say, on the Lord.

Psalm 27