December 6

"Go at once to the house on… Straight street ..." (Acts 9:11 NIV)

In my teacher’s training, I learned the importance of motivating my students. When planning their lessons one must always, according to the rules of the art, have a motivating element. Recently, I started to question this practice, because if you follow these principles exactly, it becomes the teacher's fault if students do not have the desire to learn.

All too many people want to be assured of things before they act. In real life, it is actually not so, that you always feel motivated to do what you must, but you do it anyway. And you feel better to not even consider your own desire to do the job. It is simply to go ahead and do it. Someone once said: ‘It is more likely that your actions will affect your emotions, than your emotions will motivate you to act.’

The Word of the Lord came to the disciple Ananias. He was commissioned to go to Saul, known as Paul, his Roman name, and the person who came to mean the most in the spread of Christianity. Ananias would witness to him and bring him to faith. The word ‘immediately’ in today's scripture is important. The Lord did not say: Think about whether you could imagine doing anything in this situation. He said simply: Go immediately!

When the Lord speaks to us today, we often know clearly what He wants us to do. But we can easily analyze and reason away from the certainty of what He actually said. The Word of the Lord to you and me today is: Go immediately!

Prayer

Lord, when You talk to me today, I would act immediately and do what You ask of me. Stop me if I should begin to delay.