Never Not Working

If you watch sports on TV you are familiar with this phrase from a Head & Shoulders commercial with Troy Polamalu and Patrick Mahomes. Polamalu keeps popping up in Mahomes' life claiming he is never not working and it is meant to advertise that Head & Shoulders is always working to protect your hair and scalp.

Do we believe that God is never not working? There are Scripture passages that would support this. John 5:17 Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." (NIV has always working). There is the idea of Sabbath and God resting on the seventh day of creation, but that was in a not yet fallen world. Scripture teaches about a God who is never not working when it comes to watching over our lives and accomplishing His purposes. Psalm 121:3-4 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

But do we really believe that God is never not working in our lives? Where do we celebrate God working? Isn't it when things are going well for us, or when we are healed or delivered from a threatening situation? Our response to these circumstances is "Praise God" and we are praising Him for His work. But there are lots of times when we are not experiencing God working in our lives in this way. So if God is working when people are healed, is He not working when they are not?

I recently came across a story of a woman who had a severe and deteriorating chronic illness for years. It greatly limited her ability to be a wife and a mother. Then she learned that her great grandfather had been secretly married to another woman who had put a curse on the first born daughters of the family. All the first born daughters of the family line either suffered from chronic illness or died young. She sought out generational healing and her chronic illness was completely healed. Praise God! But was God only working in her healing? If He is never not working, then He had to be working during the years of her chronic illness…..right?

We naturally do not want to explore that side of God at work because that is not the work that we want in our lives. We want the God who provides and heals and delivers. We celebrate those stories in our churches. And we want to figure out how to get God working more like that in our lives and in the lives of those around us. That is when God is real and when we are inspired to worship Him.

But a lot of our lives, and the lives of those around us, are struggling and suffering with various circumstances that are ongoing. And a lot of our lives are pretty ordinary and lack the obvious instances of God acting in provision, healing and deliverance. If we have no real awareness of God at work in those parts of our lives, then we have effectively marginalized God to those life experiences which are actually rare. No wonder we struggle to experience God at work in our every day work lives.

Can we gain a better understanding and appreciation for the God who is never not working? Not if we are primarily motivated by the desire to get God to work more for us in our lives in the way that seems right to us. We have to be motivated by a desire to work with and for Him, to better align ourselves with what He is doing.