God is always working. He never sleeps. He is always seeking to save and strengthen souls.
His ways are many and marvelous. God can send lighting and thunder, marching across the horizon. God can adjust weather patterns, he can send his angels to prevent you from an accident, he can supply you with daily bread in the form of spaghetti noodles in your cupboard. God can heal through normal means like health care and medicine, or heal divinely without human help.
God is always at work, too, through spiritual means for spiritual purposes.
The Holy Spirit prompts his fruits to grow in hearts of faith (Galatians 5:22-23). The Word of God is alive, and actively prompting faith, impacting minds, improving attitudes and changing lives (Hebrews 4:12). Baptism saves and seals, promising an everyday and eternal identity as God’s child (Galatians 3:26-27). The body and blood of Jesus Christ is real and present in Holy Communion for the forgiveness of sins—fuel for godly living (Matthew 26:26-28).
Do you see these around you in everyday experiences? in relationships at work, home and school? at the dinner table?
Do you praise God for his work through worship and the Word of God on Sunday mornings? During your quiet moments with him in the morning or evening?
I study the Bible with a group of middle school students and asked them where they see this work of God. I just love some of their answers:
“This family was baptized at church.”
“I was in bed falling asleep and began to feel scared, thinking about things that freak me out. I then began to think about God, and how it will all be okay. I thought about how he will protect me.”
“One of my friends wouldn’t stop lying. We confronted her.”
“Last Sunday at church I watched my parents take Holy Communion, and I thought, ‘I can’t wait to do that!’”
“My friend and I got into an argument at school and we both thought the other person was wrong. And we were each actually wrong. We had to forgive each other.”
Where is God at work in you, around you, and through you? Consider Jesus’ own words to his disciples. And to you.
“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things’” (Luke 24:45-48).
PRAYER: Dear God, you are always at work in me, around me and through me. I appreciate your work—both physical and spiritual—and want to see it more. Use me as your witness, open my mind to understand your ways, and bless me to be a blessing to others. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: List three recent experiences where, looking back, you know God was working in your life spiritually. Say a prayer of thanks for them, and a prayer for God to lead you to a next step.