Let me back up a few years and share the memory…
One day, when my now 14-year old son, Blake, was about 4 years old, I found him sobbing in his room. So much so that I could not understand a word he said, and neither could I console him. I rubbed his little back and held him while he cried. After a few minutes of this, he managed to choke out these words: “Mommy, I think I just shortened my days!!!” and then he went back to sobbing. Having no clue what he was talking about, I wasn’t sure what to say. But then he confessed something to me – honestly, I can’t even remember what it was, but he said “I disobeyed you!” You see, I had always tried to infuse my children with the Word of God, and one of the scriptures I had taught them was “Honor your father and mother so that your days might be long.” Blake, having taken God at His word, was sobbing because he was afraid that he was going to die much sooner than he would have had chosen to obey me instead.
I still chuckle just a little bit when I think about it, and it warms my heart… but this morning, God was using this memory to reveal a little bit of His heart to me.
I just recently read through the Old Testament, and in reading the accounts of the early days of the ‘children of Israel’, one sees God’s people constantly striving for the ‘Promised Land’ of their lives. Always striving, and not reaching that ‘Promised Land’… that place of fulfillment, of promise, of completion. It seemed that every single account of the ‘forefathers’ reveals this one common thread – one we can all relate to - Man’s Failure and God’s Mercy. However, in digging just a bit deeper, you see that in each instance God lays out a plan for them. He says repeatedly “If you will do this, I will then do that. If you walk this way, you will inherit the land. If you don’t do these things, you will have such and such…” and on and on it goes.
The point is this. The children of Israel didn’t have to suffer and struggle. Had they just taken God at His Word, followed the plan He laid out before them they would have reached their goals so much more easily and quickly!
Oh, to be as a child, to have the faith of a child… and to literally take God at His Word!!
Imagine if we didn’t keep getting in God’s way!? What do you think our lives would be like?? If we REALLY believed the judgments, the mercies, and the promises of God?? If we read “obey these commandments” and lived it? If we read “Love your enemies” and we actually did it? If we read “you are a new creation” and stopped feeling condemned. If we read “God has given you a spirit of power, and love and a sound mind” and we were no longer afraid? If we read “Bring your tithe, and prove Me” and we never had to worry about paying the bills? If we read “No weapon formed against you will prosper” and we faced our battles? If we read “by His stripes you are healed” and believed it?
God HAS laid a plan before us. We, through our own choices, disobedience, and apathy get in God’s way. We interrupt His plan for our lives, and choose, through our own actions, the harder way… the steeper path. Oh yes, this path may quite possibly lead to the same destination… But what if we actually took God at His Word and did it His way instead of our own?
Imagine that life.
Just imagine it.
10/05/06
Life Lessons - Lessons from Life for Life by Patti Hamilton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
