Day 49: Love Outside The Box

Isaiah 8:11-15

New Living Translation (NLT)

A Call to Trust the Lord

¹¹ The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said,

By DPic (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0-us  

¹² “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do,
    and don’t live in dread of what frightens them.
¹³ Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life.
    He is the one you should fear.
He is the one who should make you tremble.
¹⁴     He will keep you safe.
But to Israel and Judah
    he will be a stone that makes people stumble,
    a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem
    he will be a trap and a snare.
¹⁵ Many will stumble and fall,
    never to rise again.
    They will be snared and captured.”

***

I have always wondered why the Bible has referred to Jesus as not only the cornerstone of a strong foundation, but as a rock that would cause even His own to stumble. Israel and Judah, although they were stubborn and rebellious (just like we are) were God's chosen people. They were God's children, just as anyone who accepts Christ as Savior becomes grafted in and adopted into His own family. So why would God want to trip His own kids?

He doesn't! That's not what this is about, and I'm finally starting to make sense of the words. I'm sure if God had inspired holy men to take dictation for Him in this day and age, it would have been worded much differently so people like me wouldn't have such a hard time grasping the context.

This passage isn't about God causing us to stumble. Instead, it is a clear call for us to quit thinking the way the secular world thinks and experience the kind of devine love that only He can provide. 

Or put another way, we need to think outside the box, because God loves outside the box.

Consider this. We all know that rules made to be followed, right? But I remember back when I was young and rebellious, my friends and I adopted this motto that we thought we cleverly thought up; Rules are made to be bent... or broken, depending. As I've grown older and wiser, I've heard my children say the same thing. I'm sure my grandchildren will be saying it by the time they're old enough to read this. And I'd be willing to bet that my parents, my grandparents, and every other generation before me all thought that they invented the phrase. So, what's my point?

This is my point. When people are doing what they know is right, they generally understand that the rules are for our own good. A law that restricts us from breaking into someone's house in the middle of the night is going to save us from getting our brains blown out. A law that prohibits us from driving under the influence of some intoxicating substance is going to reduce the risk of plowing our car headlong into a telephone pole. But when people are doing right and don't want to be corrected, the very rules that are there to protect us are going to be in their way. And since they're walking around in spiritual darkness, they're going to stub their toe, and it's going to hurt.

Trust me, God doesn't want us tripping and stumbling through life. He doesn't want us to screw up and get hurt. But when we rebel against Him, He's going to make sure we feel the sting of our own stupidity. That's what discipline is about! Loving parents discipline their children, don't they? If He were to let us continue in our rebellion, our lives would only get worse. That isn't love. It's better to be allowed to experience the consequences of our actions before our actions become so out of control that the consequences consume us.

We all know people who have spent years in prison because they refuse to straighten up. Or people who feel like the whole world is against them, so they destroy their lives with drugs and alcohol. Maybe they're rich, maybe they're poor, it doesn't matter. Rebellion is an equal opportunity offender. 

What does it take for someone to clean up their act and start living with standards that help us succeed in love and life? Ask anybody you know, and you'll likely hear the oft-repeated phrase "they have to hit rock bottom." Why? What happens when they hit the bottom? Well, if it doesn't kill them (and it often does),  they figure out that there is only one way to go... Up. And that's where God's tender mercy comes into focus.

God's discipline may be harsh, His punishment is often painful. But without it, we just keep spiraling out of control. He wants us to come to a point where we will recognize that He is our only hope, our only way out of troubled waters... our only salvation! And He wants us to cling to the life-line that he is throwing out there for us.

If you're in the middle of your rebellious era right now, let this be your bottom. Seriously. Our box is only as deep as we draw it. You don't have to hit a brick wall doing 90 miles per hour to hit bottom. You don't have to be sentenced to life in prison to hit bottom. You don't have to lose your home and your family to hit bottom. You can set the boundaries wherever you want. You can draw the bottom of the box right where you stand, and step out into a love that will always welcome you into it.

Day 40: It's My Life (...and Yours)

Jonathan Billinger [CC-BY-SA-2.0]

Psalm 32:5

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁵ Finally, I confessed all my sins to you
    and stopped trying to hide my guilt.
I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.”
    And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. 

Psalm 32:8-9

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁸ The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.
    I will advise you and watch over you.
⁹ Do not be like a senseless horse or mule
    that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”

***

Oh, how this psalm seems to reflect to my life! That's the beauty of it, for me.   I can read this psalm, written thousands of years ago by some shepherd-boy-turned-king, and feel like we have so much in common! I wonder what life experience, what rebellion, David was thinking of when he wrote it. The worst thing I can think of that could have inspired this was when he got Bathsheba pregnant and then set her husband up to be killed so that her infidelity wouldn't be found out. 

That's really pretty bad, and I don't think I could top it, but I can sure relate to it. There was a time in my own life when I had found myself in a similar predicament as David's mistress. Nobody plotted the death of my then-husband, though. No, he's still alive and well. 

God didn't let David off the hook for that. I can only imagine that he tried to ignore God for as long as he could. Nobody wants to feel conviction when they're passionate about their disobedience, and if Bathsheba was his disobedience, he certainly was passionate about her! 

How that speaks of the human condition! Aren't we all like that? Even if we love God with all our heart, when we are seduced away from a right relationship with Him, we get so caught up in the enjoyment of our sin that we just don't want to hear that what we are doing is wrong!

Sooner or later, though, we have to face the music. David sure did. The penalty for committing adultery, then having Uriah killed so that he could marry his lover, was the death of their son. I'm not sure that's what this psalm is about, but I do know that David spent a lot of time on his knees while his infant boy was struggling for life. And I know that later, David enjoyed a renewed relationship with God that can only come from true repentance. In this case, I'm guessing David's rebellion probably lasted all of a year. Oh, I wish mine had been so short-lived. It took me more like a decade.

Once back on track spiritually, God took control of David's life, just as He took control of mine, and just as He will take control of anybody's life who is willing to relinquish their own stubborn will. It's amazing how we always think we can manage our lives just fine, and how far unmanageable our lives become before we realize that we've strolled too far off  the right path. But once we repent and get back in line, we discover what we should have already known... that life is so much easier when we're living for God! There really is true freedom in that. 

We may think we can do better for ourselves than God can, but we can't. Since I have assumed that the sin that brought David to pen this psalm was sexual in nature, I'm going to be bold enough to point out one of the most common misconceptions about our ability to choose for ourselves.

Myth: 
"I can't possibly consider marriage to someone I haven't slept with, because I might get stuck with someone I'm not sexually compatible with." 

Fact: 
God knows everything about us... including what we enjoy physically. Think about it. God created us to be sexual people. He created intimacy between a husband and wife to be a special, wonderful gift! He didn't intend for sex to just be utilitarian. He wants it to be pleasurable, and there is plenty of scripture to back that claim up. So why on earth would anyone think that God wouldn't make sure that any mate that HE was allowed to choose for us would be unsatisfactory in that way? On the contrary, if we were to all live for God and give Him control of selecting our mates, we'd discover the true potential of God's gift to us, and it would be a mind-blowing experience every time.


If we will just trust God to bring us His very best in our lives, we will never, ever be disappointed with the results.

Now, I have to apologize to my mother in case she's offended by reading this. And to anyone else who might wonder how on earth I took a psalm of repentance and restoration and turned it into a lecture on sexual misconduct. Honestly, I don't know. It wasn't what I had in mind when I started writing, but it's what I ended up with. Maybe God knew that someone reading this needed to hear it. I'd sure like to think that even now, I'd allowed God to direct my thoughts, and given Him control over my keyboard.

Day 20: 1 Samuel 3-15

Saul gets rebuked. Providence Lithograph Co.1902{ PD-23}

S: 1 Samuel 15:22-23 (New Living Translation)

22 But Samuel replied, "What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.23 Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king."

O: I wanted to post this in a different translation than what i have been reading from. i like the way this one is worded more than the other versions. anyway, saul had just fought a battle against the amalekites as God had instructed him, but he only did it half-way. instead of annhilating everything and everyone, he (and his army) spared the king and the best of the spoils of war, insisting that they were for a sacrifice to the Lord. but that is not what God had instructed them to do, and samuel broke the news to saul that he'd been demoted.

A: there is such a lesson to be learned here, and i hope i'll remember it! when God tells us to do something, we'd better not do a half-assed job of it. God isn't going to accept any whiney "but I thought..." type of excuses.  God expects our total obedience, and there are consequences when we decide to hold back just a little for our own reasons.

P: Lord, remind me of this passage when i'm wanting to do things my own way! remind me that you'd rather have my total obedience than for me to do things half way and then try to pass off my disobedience as something that might glorify you... because disobedience NEVER glorifies you. i want to be a woman of integrity before you, God. shape me!