
“This is what I told them: ‘Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Do everything as I say, and all will be well!” – Jeremiah 7:23.
Have you ever had your agenda collide with someone else’s agenda? As a teenager, has your agenda ever collided with your parents’ agenda for the weekend? You plan one thing, but they plan something else for you. As a spouse, has your agenda for the money ever collided with your spouse’s agenda for the money? At work, does your agenda clash with the agenda of others on how to move the business forward? Somewhere in some season, there will be a clash of agendas. Fortunately, these conflicting agendas can be worked out to everyone’s satisfaction with some compromise.
We have the choice every day to set our agendas, but have we stopped to consider what God wants us to do with our agenda? How often do we pray that God guides our steps and aligns our desires with His greater purpose? Do we pray that His agenda takes precedence over our plans and grants us the wisdom to discern His will in every situation? Are we willing to surrender our ambitions and embrace the path He laid out for us, even if it differs from what we imagined? We can only pick up God’s agenda when we choose to lay down our agenda.
God is constantly revealing His agenda to you as you journey with Him. On life’s long path, you will experience many things. You will experience relationships (good and bad), successes and failures, blessings and trials, mountain tops and valleys. You will work, have friends, be offended, and offend others. You will make good, bad, and maybe even ugly decisions. As you travel through life, God will reveal some things to you along the way that will help you understand His agenda for your life and help you make adjustments to your life that will line you up more and more into the center of His will for your life.
There were many demands and expectations upon Jesus, but His focus was always to please the Father. His agenda wasn’t built around pleasing Himself or others. He was about God’s agenda and not His own: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work” (John 4:34). Jesus says in John 5:19, “…I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” Jesus only did what the Father did, and so should we.
When we choose to lay our agenda for His agenda, we get to build His kingdom here on Earth. Our goal is to be like Jesus and leave room for His agenda. God is always on the move, even when we don’t see it (John 5:17). He has an agenda for busy and mundane days. All we have to do is choose His agenda over our own.
Discussion Questions:
- What do you need to add or take away from your agenda to pursue His agenda?
- What is the difference between seeking the “plans” God may have for us and simply seeking Him?
- What could be done to ensure you seek God’s agenda this year?