March 2026 – Wisdom From the Word

Carrying a Calling

There is a very interesting verse in Colossians, almost presented as an afterthought by Paul.

¹⁷ And say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” Colossians 4:17 (NKJV)

The presentation in the Lexham English Bible is more pointed.

¹⁷ And tell Archippus, “Direct your attention to the ministry that you received in the Lord, in order that you may complete it.” Colossians 4:17 (LEB)

Paul is consistent in that he gives a similar encouragement to Timothy.

⁵ But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 2 Timothy 4:5 (NKJV)

While on the surface the primary point is the need to direct or give our attention to the ministry we are called to, there is an important subtext. That subtext is that we each have a ministry or calling. However, if we are unaware of what our calling is directing our attention to it is a difficult task. Over the years there have been various tools developed to help us discern the gifts that we carry. While we can fill out and labour over surveys there is another approach we can use. In Matthew 6:21 Jesus told us that our heart follows our treasure. That is, we all value certain things yet Jesus is telling us in the passage to set right priorities and choose to value the right things. This means pursuing His heart through His word, worship and fellowship. When we do this our gifts begin to emerge and it is easier to direct out attention to them.

There are a few lists of gifts in the NT, Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Ephesians 4:11and 1 Peter. 4:11. Some are viewed as bestowed by the Spirit as needed in the moment and others as inherent motivational gifts, aspects of who and what we are. Paul illustrates some motivational gifts for us in Romans 12. I think they are illustrative rather than exhaustive but the important part is how he encourages us to use them.

⁶ Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; ⁷ or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; ⁸ he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:6–8 (NKJV)

The gifts we carry, commensurate with our calling, need to be developed and their development comes about when we direct our attention to their use. For example, I know my gift is not hospitality. I enjoy spending time with people, I don’t enjoy preparing our home to host people. I do it because I think it is important, yet I know that unlike with me, it comes naturally to many. However, I do carry a desire to help people and I am very willing to help, to teach, to counsel, and similar things. Thus, these are the areas where I direct my attention.

I know the calling of some of you who read this, not all. Yet I also know that as we seek His heart our gifts and callings emerge and most importantly, I know that you carry a calling. Given that, pursue it and direct your attention to it that you may fulfill it. After all, as Paul wrote, we are His workmanship and He has prepared good for us to do.

¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV)

Out of His Presence

I was praying about what to write about and the Spirit brought to mind an experience from many years ago. It was the beginning season of a small group that grew and had a significant impact on many from a variety places and backgrounds. I have written about this in the past but with a different focus.

A small group of us were worshipping and as my friend Lynn was playing instrumentally on the piano words came to me and I began to sing, “I am here to worship, Intimate One. You are all I worship, Intimate One.” I don’t remember all of the words that emerged as Lynn played, yet I do remember that what produced them was an awareness of His presence, Jesus being real and tangible and a strong desire to submit to His presence and leading.

This was an ‘Out of His Presence’ moment. While we don’t often talk about it, there is a distinct difference between Yahweh’s omnipresence and His manifest presence. He can manifest His presence to varying degrees. On this occasion, though it wasn’t a lot of His presence, it was sufficient to move the hearts of a group of us and release a new level of worship. Any time He begins to manifest more of His presence, we have the opportunity to respond at a deeper level. Even as I wrote this, I felt led to pause and just fix the gaze of my heart upon Him. He responded by intensifying His presence and I was deeply moved.

In seeking to capture the importance of this idea I thought of a song that became popular a couple of years ago, Make Room. The song captures the heart of what I am seeking to express. One stanza says,

And I will make room for You
To do whatever You want to
To do whatever You want to
I will make room for You
To do whatever You want to
To do whatever You want to

The repetition of submission to His will and leading is a key theme of the song. It is reflective of what you are likely familiar with in Proverbs.

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5–6 (NKJV)

When we come into His presence and submit our will to His we are making room. It is from here, out of His presence, that life and revelation can flow. When we lay down our agendas and make room for His, the Spirit is free to move in our midst. A great example of this is the famous George Washington Carver, a former slave who became famous for his scientific acumen in the US and abroad. In his regular Give Him 15 posts Dutch Sheets recently wrote about Carver, his numerous agricultural innovations and his international fame. Most importantly Dutch wrote about the source of Carver’s wisdom. Carver lived by the above passage from Proverbs. He made room and sought wisdom from Yahweh and referred to his lab at the Tuskegee Institute as ‘God’s little workshop.’ Carver’s focus was on the Lord guiding his scientific discoveries and achievements, which were numerous!

Now back to us, if we, like Carver, recognize that what comes out of His presence is the opportunity to engage in worship, creativity, passion and wisdom it should encourage us to make room. Let’s do that.

Walk with Me?

Lately I have been thinking about walking, actually longing for warmer weather and the snow to be gone so I can go and walk freely in the woods. Given my limited walking over the winter with my second knee replacement three months ago this longing seems deeper than usual. Part of this desire is that when I walk in the woods and mountains my heart is drawn to prayer and worship.

With my desire for walking in mind I heard something that led me to reflecting on the first mention of anyone walking in scripture. We find it in Genesis 3.

⁸ And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:8 (NKJV)

Our next example of walking is in Genesis 5.

²⁴ And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. Genesis 5:24 (NKJV)

Not surprisingly the Hebrew word for walk means, you guessed it, walk or walking.

I have heard people suggest that the language of Yahweh walking is an accommodation to our understanding as God is spirit and doesn’t have a body. I respectfully disagree. The consistent testimony of scripture refutes that view. For example, in Genesis 18 three men visit Abraham. We later discover that two are angels and one speaking to Abraham is Yahweh. In Isaiah 6 Isaiah sees Yahweh on His throne. He has a bodily appearance. The same is true for Ezekiel’s encounters. There are other Old Testament examples as well should you choose to search them out.

My point in raising this is that I believe Yahweh was in the habit of coming to Adam and Eve in the evening in bodily form and walking with them. Something was passed down to Enoch that stirred him to seek out Yahweh and walk with Him. In the walking their relationship became so close that Enoch was taken from earth to heaven.

My experience is that there is something significant about walking with another. Decades ago, working on an adolescent psychiatric unit I found walking and talking with the patients more productive than sitting and talking with them in an office. A friend from church recently shared that in a supervisory role he was in there was an identified problem with an employee, he went to see him and said, “Let’s go for a walk.” After 20 minutes of walking the source of the problem was revealed. I have another friend who regularly gets away to the mountains to ‘walk with Yahweh’ and the fruit is evident in His life. Walking is an openness and intimacy opportunity and we see the pattern of walking with Yahweh further reflected in Genesis.

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. Genesis 17:1 (NKJV)

⁴⁰ But he said to me, ‘The LORD, before whom I walk, will send His angel with you and prosper your way; and you shall take a wife for my son from my family and from my father’s house. Genesis 24:40 (NKJV)

¹⁵ And he blessed Joseph, and said: “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has fed me all my life long to this day, Genesis 48:15 (NKJV)

Walking with Yahweh was important both from the perspective of Yahweh and the patriarchs.

Now, I don’t want to stretch a metaphor beyond its usefulness but I believe there is spiritual truth and opportunity in the idea of walking with Yahweh, in particular outdoors. Research demonstrates that people working on difficult tasks do better when exposed to nature. It makes sense given our original habitation was a massive garden.

There is an expression, ‘Not all who wander are lost.’ It reflects being more than doing. I know that when I sense His drawing to walk and be with Him I become more conscious of His presence with me throughout the day. So, is He asking you to walk with Him? Is that something you will do?

Bing Videos Kim Walker-Smith Walk with Me

The Main Thing

There was a popular song a few years ago by Matt Redman about the importance of true worship. You likely know the song, The Heart of Worship. It is a beautiful song that reflects a spiritual reality found in the expression, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.’ A key line in the song is “I’m coming back to the heart of worship.” This leads to some obvious questions, ‘Why do we have to come back? Why did we leave?’ The answer of course lies in scripture.

¹ Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. ² For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, ³ how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, ⁴ God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will? Hebrews 2:1–4 (NKJV)

The warning is about ‘drifting away’ not intentionally leaving. There have been stories of people over the years who didn’t survive because they were on some small floating device, stopped paying attention to the shore and drifted out to sea. In recent weeks there was the story of the Australian mother and her three children who went out on paddleboards and an inflatable kayak and the weather become rough and they drifted out to sea, even though they were paying attention. Thankfully they were rescued because the 13 year old boy swam four hours in rough seas to reach shore and help for his family.

The story serves as a warning and read carefully; Hebrews is a very sobering book that warns and deeply challenges us. One example above is the author highlighting the danger of drifting away. It is one reason for this famous passage in Hebrews.

²⁴ And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, ²⁵ not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24–25 (NKJV)

We need one another, we need to be checked and encouraged by one another, ‘lest we drift away.’

Thus, I think it is important that we have a way to assess whether or not we have drifted and need to come back to the heart of worship, our reason for being. As a way of making that assessment let’s go a little deeper into Redman’s song by looking at the initial verses.

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that’s of worth
That will bless Your heart

I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart, yeah

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus

In essence Matt is saying that our words are an insufficient assessment tool. We can’t go by surface appearances. Instead, what we need to do is invite Jesus to examine our hearts and see if our focus is truly on Him. If it is our worship and lifestyle will be about Him. After all, true worship is scripturally defined most clearly in Romans 12.

¹ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1–2 (NKJV)

In the passage above the NKJV has ‘reasonable service.’ This is an accurate translation. Paul is saying that it simply makes sense in light of what he has previously written in Romans. Yet some translations, the ESV for example, have these two Greek words as ‘spiritual worship’ because the translators recognize that this level of surrender is at the heart of worship.

So, we can invite Jesus to assess our spiritual condition and whether our hearts have drifted, which I think we all do at times, I know I have more than once gone through the motions without my heart fully engaged and surrendered at that moment. The beautiful thing about walking with Him is that even though I can fail, each time I do I can run not away, but boldly to the throne of grace to ‘obtain mercy and find grace.’

Thus, if you see that you have drifted, simply seek His face and ask Jesus to help you reorient your heart to worship.