Daily Manna · Day 278 · October 5
His Workmanship
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
The good works were prepared before you were.
Paul has just spent nine verses removing every contribution you made to your own rescue. Dead. Quickened. By grace. Not of works, lest any man should boast. Then he uses the word workmanship, which is a made-thing word, and puts works straight back into the sentence in an entirely different position. Not works that earn. Works that were laid out along a road in advance, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Walk, not achieve. It is the verb you use for a road you are already on.
Which makes the usual question the wrong one. What should I do with my life is a question about a road somewhere else, with more margin and a better platform on it. The narrower question is worse: what has already been laid along today? The commute. The shift. The child and the fractions. The neighbour who talks for too long at the gate. How many of those did you file this morning under interruption?
Do not answer that yet. Put this down, sit still for two minutes, and say nothing at all.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 278 is Let Him Glory (Jeremiah 9:24).