Be Thankful For What Brings You To Surrender
It is an oddness I caught in Prison to Praise and Power in Praise by Merlin Carothers, books I discovered and discussed here not too long ago. That the most horrible things which bring you to surrender and submission to God, you should be thankful and praise God for. If not for adversity and affliction, we wouldn't have turned to God in repentance, gotten saved, and now praise and obey, worship and adore him for the love he had to do that to us.
I mean, I am familiar with the pattern from my own experience and umpteen years of seminary and study. Psalm 107 lays it out pretty clearly, which see -- "39 When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, evil, and sorrow, 40 he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; 41 but he raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. 42 The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. 43 Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord" (ESV).
Why would God allow us to be crushed (which we pretty much do to ourselves through our own ignorance)? Dissatisfaction is the mother of Jesus Christ. Say What? No, seriously, the words Mary and Miriam are from myrrh (Heb. מוֹר, mor), a bitter gum. You are not happy, not satisfied, so you move to fix it. THAT is Jesus. God's increase is his movement to fix what he is dissatisfied with.
Something he is dissatisfied with is our sense of independence. We are born ignorant of anything we were or knew before we were born. We think we are alone. That we are independent. Separate from each other and from God. And he lets us ride it out. I have heard that one of the lessons in the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve step program is to lead to the alcoholic to the realization that his or her broken, deplorable, and desperate state is the result of "my best thinking." That "I did this to myself."
But we belong to Him. It. There isn't anything his forgiveness is not beyond if it is repented of. God does not, of course, have a body let alone wings, but we can find ourselves, after repentance (think Mt. Moriah), under his wings. That is a real good place to stay and to praise him from.
I mean, I am familiar with the pattern from my own experience and umpteen years of seminary and study. Psalm 107 lays it out pretty clearly, which see -- "39 When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, evil, and sorrow, 40 he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; 41 but he raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. 42 The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. 43 Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord" (ESV).
Why would God allow us to be crushed (which we pretty much do to ourselves through our own ignorance)? Dissatisfaction is the mother of Jesus Christ. Say What? No, seriously, the words Mary and Miriam are from myrrh (Heb. מוֹר, mor), a bitter gum. You are not happy, not satisfied, so you move to fix it. THAT is Jesus. God's increase is his movement to fix what he is dissatisfied with.
Something he is dissatisfied with is our sense of independence. We are born ignorant of anything we were or knew before we were born. We think we are alone. That we are independent. Separate from each other and from God. And he lets us ride it out. I have heard that one of the lessons in the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve step program is to lead to the alcoholic to the realization that his or her broken, deplorable, and desperate state is the result of "my best thinking." That "I did this to myself."
But we belong to Him. It. There isn't anything his forgiveness is not beyond if it is repented of. God does not, of course, have a body let alone wings, but we can find ourselves, after repentance (think Mt. Moriah), under his wings. That is a real good place to stay and to praise him from.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
11:49 PM
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