HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 11, 2024 – I don’t think Jesus sat down every night before going to bed and wrote out a list of things he wanted to do the next day. I don’t think he wrote out a list of resolutions, either, at the Jewish version of New Year’s Eve (if there was such a thing back then). I don’t even think he wrote grocery lists.

What I do think Jesus did during his ministry years is fall asleep every night with a clear conscience, with nothing to repent. He would almost always sleep deeply and well – even on heaving boats in the middle of a storm – and when he woke up refreshed in the morning, God let him know what he had to do that day. Jesus rarely knew in advance what his daily tasks were. He woke up and waited for God to inform him.

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

As a young believer, I often wondered how Jesus’ ministry could possibly have spanned three years when the gospels don’t seem to relay three years’ worth of activity. But as I matured as a believer, I came to understand that Jesus wasn’t on the move 24/7. Like the Israelites staying put in the desert for long periods of time until God gave them the signal to strike camp and move on, Jesus sometimes stayed put wherever he was, like in the desert during his temptation or during his stint at Capernaum. Mind you, he didn’t laze around playing video games and eating pizza pockets during those times, as John attests (“if everything Jesus did was written down, I reckon the whole world couldn’t hold all those books”); he probably just did the same things over and over, like healing the sick and teaching at the local synagogue. He would do those things in the same place until God told him it was time to move on.

It’s critically important to note that the decision to stay put or to move on never fell on Jesus. It was never Jesus’ decision. It was always God’s decision and Jesus always obeyed: “I always do that which pleases the Father”.

I mention this because how Jesus lived his life is how we need to live ours, which is why I can’t emphasize enough that Jesus waited for God to direct his plans.  Many of us make up physical or mental to-do lists about all the “godly” things we want to accomplish within a certain period of time. We set these tasks for ourselves, sometimes on our own initiative and sometimes at the goading of others who have questionable motives. But, like Jesus, we need to be waiting for God and God only to set our tasks for us. We should never run ahead of God. Sure, we can let God know what we’d like to do (he always wants to hear our ideas), but we should only follow through on our plans if we get the clear go-ahead directly from God.

Throughout scripture, we’re reminded again and again to let God handle our reins and direct our steps. This includes doing whatever we do at God’s direction and in God’s time, not just in God’s way. In his letter, James teaches us that we’re to say: “if the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that,” rather than simply to state we’ll go here or there in such and such a time to do such and such. I remember my grandmother being fond of saying: “If the Good Lord is willing”, and then stating what it is she wanted to do and when she wanted to do it. This phrase – “if the Good Lord is willing” – used to be common among believers in adherence to James’s teaching, but it’s fallen out of fashion in favour of self-directed to-do lists.

We need to go back to letting God and God only plan our lives and finalize our tasks, even if it means we wake up every morning with no clue whatsoever what we’re going to do that day.

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”

(Psalm 27)