I Can’t Fix It

I like to figure things out…

Chances are you do too.

Here is the thing I figured out.
I can’t figure it out.

I cannot figure out how to do the things God desires for me.
I can’t fix myself.

God knows this.
He knew this from the beginning.
That is why when He did the covenant with Abraham
He put Abraham to sleep.
Abraham couldn’t do it either.
He needed a substitute.

That is the reason God also sent His son Jesus.
Because we can’t follow God’s laws.
We aren’t good enough.

But here is what I realized.
When I hear that I’m not good enough…
that only God can change me…
When I hear that the thing I need to do is…
let God work through me.
My first thought is, “How can I do that better.”

Stop.

I literally just inserted myself and what I could do in the very thing I can’t do.
I try to figure out the thing I can’t figure out.

And here is where it gets wild.

I think inwardly, “What can I do?”
I think outwardly, “What do others think?”
When really the direction that matters is upward.

And that is not a question to figure out.

It’s praise.
It’s worship.

It’s when you come to the end of yourself and realize you can’t do it.
Then you don’t try to figure out how to not do it better.
You instead choose to praise the God who already did what you couldn’t.
And guess what?
When that becomes the posture of our life, 
That’s when we finally make room for God to work.

Because when you stop obsessing over fixing yourself…
You finally have room to stop looking at yourself altogether.

And that’s where worship begins.

Not striving.
Not performing.
Not proving.

Just turning your attention upward.

Did you know that Worship and Work has the same root word in the Hebrew language.
The word avodah carries the meaning of both worship and work and service all at the same time.

It comes from the word avad.

Our whole life comes down to praise, to worship.

What if when we sat down to work, we thought of it as an act of praise.
Not out of obligation.
Not out of discipline.
But instead as an act of worship.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said…
I don’t feel like working on this.
Or I am burned out from work.

But what if we shifted how we thought about our work?
What if our work became an act of worship?

What if we didn’t work merely out of obedience…
but out of worship?

I thought that obedience was the thing.
But I think it’s a step deeper.

I think that it actually starts with worship.

When you realize you can’t…
and remember what God already did for you.
That is when worship leads you to that obedience.

Your work is an act of looking upward toward God in thankfulness…
Instead of looking inward toward discipline
Or outwards to service.

Yes, obedience, discipline, and service all come out of that one thing…
Worship.
Avadah

And maybe that’s the whole point.

I can’t fix it.

But God can.