Isaiah 5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?

Perhaps this should have been the closing verse, but would that accomplish what I need to point out? Notice how I used should and would? This is the last in the trilogy of shoulda, woulda, coulda.

The could is full of regret. It is the past seen thru the eyes of experience. It dwells in regret as if it were a live thing, but it is not, it is a dead thing. There is no dwelling on the past that changes anything about it.

Could have is the most dangerous of these three because it acknowledges the skill, talent, gift and ability of someone that never existed. It is the vanity or all vanities. It pulls at the present to stop that which is possible in the now.

When I repented of the life I had lived the Lord spoke into my mind and said, “What is stopping you now?” I knew the answer as soon as He asked. “Nothing.” That was true but hidden within the answer was a truth I would have to experience. I was my only obstacle. I had to get over myself.

It would take years for me to grasp the truth of Isaiah 5:4, that nothing I did or did not do changed the condition of the Vineyard. Yes it affected the world, yes it affected my family, yes it affected my friends, but I did not change the Vineyard. My life is not so important that I can frustrate the will of God.

Yet He loves me and wants to include me in His works.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

There’s that word “should” again.

Matthew 8:21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

Following up on yesterday’s should devotional, allow me to cover would. Would is one of those excuse words. “I would but I already have plans.” “I would but I need to …….” You fill in the blanks.

Where would any of us be if Jesus had said, “I would but I didn’t do anything wrong.” That’s the danger of the would be condition. We do not see the long term consequences. We make choices every day. We make excuses, good and bad. We set priorities and somehow because we have set them we are unwilling to relinquish control.

Is God your first priority? In your heart you might well say yes and mean it. Do your actions support that claim? The reason I can ask that is because I have first hand experience. Are you any different? That doesn’t make us hypocrites, it just means we lost focus on our priorities. It happens.

We live in the now. God is eternal and sees all things, meanings and consequences. So I ask you, if God knows, why would we forget to make time with Him a top priority?

2 Chronicles 30:5 So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written.

Let this be an encouragement to return to that which has been neglected.