Sunday, May 2, 2010
May 3 ... I Chronicles 7 - 8 "Not Entitled to the Good Life"
I Chronicle 7:40 "Excellent in Character, Brave in Battle." What a joy to hear about sons who face battle with courage. So many warriors in this geneaolgy. Wow. Fight the good fight of faith - I Timothy 6:12 Hold tightly to life! I've lost a battle this day when I didn't hold tightly. I gave up and didn't delight in my distress. It's usually fight or flight when we fight our own battles. I just wanted to fly away today. Some of my loss of hope is founded in my demands. "You are not entitled to the good life. Stop whimpering as if you deserve what I am not providing. That is what I still say to people whose resentment over suffering is keeping them from flowing with grateful hope in the stream of My Plan." That would be God's Plan A not Bev's Plan B. So grateful to God that He keeps no record of our battles lost. I've been thinking this weekend about Lazarus coming out of that tomb. He was dead, then he was alive. But he couldn't unwrap himself. Thank you to each one of you for unwrapping a strip that has kept me bound. For I am a mess and I am ALIVE in ways I have never been before. I want to be brave in the battles of my life where no whimpering is allowed. Help us all, dear God, to learn a teeny bit more what it means to delight in our distress this day. There's so much I just don't get! Thank you for never giving up on us just like you did for these people.
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Thanking God that He doesn't give up on us.
ReplyDeleteThe commentary mentions that the tribes of Zebulun and Dan are not listed here.
And in Chapter 6, the tribe of Levi is not listed.
So, as important as these names are in this list of genealogy...it just might be the tribes that are not listed that has the greater message to us.
Not entitled to the good life - wondering if Zebulun and Dan are left out because of God's anger towards them.
And Levi was left out because of a sanctification (set apart for the LORD) blessing.
Lord, help us not to whimper when our paths are full of distress. Make us holy. In Jesus Name. Amen.
"Things which she had thought dark and terrible and which had made her tremble as she looked up from the Valley because they had seemed so alien to any part of the Realm of Love, were now seen to be but parts of a great and wonderful whole. They were so altered and modified that as she saw what they extended into, she wondered at having been so blind and stupid at having had such false ideas about them.
ReplyDeleteShe began to understand quite clearly that truth cannot be understood from books alone or by any written works, but only by personal growth and development in understanding, and that things written even in the Book of Books can be astonishingly misunderstood while one still lives on the low levels of spiritual experience and on the wrong side of the grave on the mountains.
She perceived that no one who finds herself up on the slopes of the Kingdom of Love can possibly dogmatise about what is seen there, because it is only then that she comprehends how small a part of the glorious whole she sees. All she can do is to gasp with wonder, awe, and thanksgiving, and to long with all her heart to go higher and to see and understand more." -[Quote taken from page 208 of Hinds' Feet On High Places]
Not only are we not entitled to "the good life", but it might very possibly preclude us from knowing the real Truth of Christ. Only a journey of hardship and grief eventually leads us to the end of ourselves, that place where no whimper is necessary, because we learn to trust Him.
There is such a tender spot in my heart for each of you in your suffering place. Use it for His Glory. Let's get to the High Places where we were intended to dwell in Jesus.
Oh to long with my heart to go higher and see and understand more...laying down the pettiness of my distance and demands.
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