Allow God

Do we really trust God? Do we really believe that there is a God that will change people and their hearts? Do we think that we are the ones who have to do that? Do we really think we know what God is up to in someone else's life? Do we think that we know what is best and we have to tell people that? Jesus just was present with the people that he crossed paths with. He did not "call out" Zacchaeus, he just had dinner with him. There is no record of Jesus saying to him, "now you know you have been doing some bad things and you got to get those right before we can go futher." This is what happened:

Then Jesus entered and walked through Jericho. There was a man there, his name Zacchaeus, the head tax man and quite rich. He wanted desperately to see Jesus, but the crowd was in his way—he was a short man and couldn't see over the crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus when he came by.
When Jesus got to the tree, he looked up and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry down. Today is my day to be a guest in your home." Zacchaeus scrambled out of the tree, hardly believing his good luck, delighted to take Jesus home with him. Everyone who saw the incident was indignant and grumped, "What business does he have getting cozy with this crook?"
Zacchaeus just stood there, a little stunned. He stammered apologetically, "Master, I give away half my income to the poor—and if I'm caught cheating, I pay four times the damages."
Jesus said, "Today is salvation day in this home! Here he is: Zacchaeus, son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to find and restore the lost."

Luke 19:1-10

Jesus did come to seek and restore that which was lost, but not by finding it and shaking it into submission, but by submitting to it and having it love him back. Just by showing love, by having dinner, by engaging in a relationship, and a conversation this man knew what he needed to do. Do we trust that God is still the same? Do we trust that if we just love, care, and accept people - sin and all - that this will allow God to work out what God needs to work out? Could it be our duty as Christians to just love and call people into relationship with us and God? If that is done can we allow God to work out the rest of what this person needs? God will lead them. We do it with training, confrontation, care, and teaching, but we ultimately leave it to God to bring about the end God desires?

Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of the people. Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all.

Proverbs 3:4-12

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

Philippians 2:13

We do not assume we know it all. We are called not lose a grip on love. We are called to carve it on our heart. Then we are called to trust God with the rest because we do not know everything. We do not know what God will do with any of us, what God will use to bring us back to restoration, what God is up to at anytime at any place. My call is to love people and have that love attract them into a journey of the spiritual. Once they start this journey I must leave it up to God to bring them to the end of that journey, their journey with God. God working in them for God's pleasure. My love keeps them on the journey when it is hard, confusing, or when they make "wrong" decisions. Not my journey, or the journey I think it should be, but the journey God has made for them. If it has to be my journey I am a clanging cymbal to them. Without love they never get to start the journey of knowing God. Without love the never get to complete that journey of knowing God. They never get to know that they are very well loved children of God. Love people and allow God.

Namaste'