When you are faced with a tough decision, where do you turn for advice?
Do you go to your childhood friends who were your “partners in crime” when it came to breaking the rules? Do you turn to your siblings who always tend to see things your way?
Or do you go to a small group leader or an elder in the church? Most importantly, do you seek God for direction and look for the answers in His word?
In the third message in the “Torn” series, we learned that King Rehoboam chose “want” over “wisdom” when he had a choice to make. Instead of listening to his elders, he surrounded himself with his childhood friends and let them give him the advice he wanted to hear.
The result was a kingdom divided. Like Solomon before him, Rehoboam’s kingdom was torn.
So why do we reject wisdom?
- We already have our minds made up.
- We don’t want to follow the advice.
- And we already know what the person is going to say, so we don’t ask.
In the end, it is really a reflection of our heart condition. When our hearts are set on God, we are willing to submit to others.
What about you? Where do you go for advice? Are you seeking want or wisdom? How has God been speaking to you through the “Torn” series? We would love to hear from you.
This week I am on the road. I decided to drive rather than fly to Greensboro, North Carolina for some business meetings this week. I have found myself with alot of time for reflection and talks with God.
One area God has been impressing upon my heart is His past deliverances for me. There have been times in my life when I had absolutely no control over situations (which can be a very scary place to be). But once I “let go and let God”, I can’t think of one time when God hurt me or didn’t come up with a solution that 24 hours earlier I had had no idea about.
I also got to thinking about how time and again in the bible, God loves to show a solution under seemingly impossible odds. I mean Pharoh must have thought Moses’s God was a fool for leading His people up against the Red Sea with Pharoh’s army closing in from behind and therefore no possible escape for God’s people. You know, I’m not even sure Moses knew what God was going to do as a plan of escape until He told Moses to stretch the rod across the Red Sea’s waters.
The 3 men escaping from the fiery furnace. David facing Golieth. A team of people marching seven times around the walls of Jericho with nothing (seemingly) to knock it down with. I have had my own Red Sea’s of life part for me that could only be explained by the intervention of God. And yet, I am embarrassed to say how many times in this life I continue to look at problems and worry —–spending time on worry rather than trusting in that time that Jesus Christ can handle anything.
But as I can get into beating myself up that I’m not trusting in God as well as I could and that God must really be frustrated with me, He reminds me of Elijah’s story. Here Elijah, a great man of God and fierce warrior in his own way cuts and runs one day when the straw of stress in his life comes and breaks his back—–he hears Jezebel is after him. After his mighty accomplishments and witness to God working in his life, he runs for fear just because Jezebel said she’s gunning for him. What I love is God’s response—-He doesn’t come screaming at Elijah, “up and at ‘em soldier!!”. Rather Scripture captures how God approached Elijah, let him rest and then gently talks and reasons with him. It is a great picture of God knowing our humaness and limitations.
But all these above stories have a common thread—how these people of the bible ultimately trusted God and tied themselves to God’s heart. It’s when their human minds began to question matters in their own power that they ran into trouble. And that is my life—-when my heart is close to God’s heart, somehow life works out. When I worry and blow things out of proportion, my heart is far from God and I’m caught up in my own head—-that’s just how it plays out.
So as I move forward with life’s concerns, I’m reminded in my talks with God to just snuggle close to Him and trust. Reminded of His help in the past, that brings a great comfort.
During this trip, I decided to stop in Teays Valley, West Virginia. One of the striking parts of the trip was getting up the next morning early to get to my final destination in Greensborc, North Carolina. As I drove the rest of the way thru the hills of Virginia, the fog was just about 50% lifted while the sun was trying to break thru. It was some of the most awesome visuals God’s given me.
I recalled Pastor Ben speaking some time back on how one of the ways we can honor and see God is thru His creation. As I drove, Romans Chapter 1 kept coming to mind about how God will leave clues of His majesty. I couldn’t help but wonder how an aetheist could drive thru and see what I was seeing but conclude there is no God. As a matter of fact, I can imagine seeing such beauty has to convict an aetheist to their core per Romans 1. To see this magnificent yet sliver of God’s creation and truly believe this happened by “random chance”? Impossible. I can’t see anyone seeing what I saw and yet take the position that there is no God. They have to know at times like that it is their own egos stopping them from giving glory to God.