It was embarrassing to say the least. There I stood in a public restroom waving my hands furiously under the faucet, grumbling that someone really should fix the sensor. Why on earth wouldn’t the water come out?

Then I realized – it’s not automatic. That’s right, it was one of the old fashioned kind. The kind you have to turn on! No one was there to enjoy the spectacle but I had a good laugh at myself, and a reminder that everything in life is not automatic.

Our world has become so automated. Everything it seems is automatic! With all of our smart technology we rarely think about so many things that other generations labored to have. But, is that really progress…or is it distraction?

While our auto-pilot lives can bring convenience and comfort, they can also bring complacency. We take too much for granted. We assume. We fail to work at those things that cannot be automatically given.

God will speak to you. But you have to open His Word and prepare your heart. The Lord does answer prayer. But you have to seek Him faithfully and fervently. An all-wise God will guide your life. But you have to be willing to follow.

The God of the universe will supply your need. But you must work, live by faith, and steward what He puts in your hand. The Holy Spirit will use you to witness to others but you must stay armed with the gospel and ready to speak for Him. Christ will make you holy but you must keep yourself “unspotted from the world.” 

The applications are endless, but the principle is plain: Don’t expect God to do what He plainly told you to do. 

Our generation wants the fruit without the labor, the victory without the struggle, the crown without the race, the product without the process, the blessing without the obedience, the privileges without the responsibility. There is only one thing you don’t have to work at and that is salvation. Jesus did all of the work for that. 

Paul said it this way:

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be first partakes of the fruits. (2 Timothy 2:3-6)

Perhaps you are waving your hands violently under the faucet waiting for something to change. Remember that some things are not automatic. You have to do it the old-fashioned way…you have to work at it.