Our God Is a God of Symmetry and Evenness
My God is an awesome God! Just when it seems that life is really great and I get too attached to it, God lets something slip through the hedge protecting me. That something hits me squarely in my gut and reminds me I am not yet in heaven.
On the other hand, just when I am at my lowest of ebb tides, God sends a gentle, rolling wave that buoys me up out of the shallows and the sand and mud and roily water attending them.
And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. (Mal 3:3 KJV)
God balances my life out, He is the Great Equalizer. As I have written in a previous post (My Unusual Journal 46, KeepYour Faith in God the Great Equalizer), He has made me a great eagle with two wings, affliction and anointing, that will carry me unerringly home. My God never lets me drown in bitter despair nor does He let me fly too high, getting too close to the hot sun so that the wax holding my temporary wings together melts and I fall to everlasting ruin. There is surely an all-knowing, all-powerful God not just "out there," but within me and all around me, a God who is determined not to let me fail. All I have to do is keep my faith in Him. My faith in God alone gives me the Eternal Security that I need.
This is the first My Unusual Journal I have posted in about five weeks… five weeks of physical and emotional highs and lows on the roller coaster we lightly call life – but this so-called life is not the full reality life toward which we are pressing – it is nothing more than a shimmering mirage full of tragedy and hardships.
My absence from the Internet was caused by an illness. It was not voluntary; it was a test of my mettle. It was not that God didn’t know whether I had the “right stuff” in me and He wanted to see whether I could live up to all the glowing phrases of faithful, dedicated trust in Jesus I had been spouting like a fountain sending its waters hither and yon on friend and foe alike – although I really don’t know of any honest–to-goodness foes I have.
How did I fare on my test? Well, I didn’t ace it, if that’s what you want to know, and I saw some flaws that I, by the grace of God, have to seriously work on. In fact, again by the grace of God, I have already begun to cast these unwelcome squatters out of my house. Now this is where the love and mercy of God shine their brightest. These unwelcome “guests” in my home were not things that were pleasing to God; in fact, all such flaws are displeasing to Him. But He never dispossesses us of our home simply because it is not perfect. In effect God sent me a notice in my five-week “down time” that He was not pleased with my uninvited guests and told me to evict them. That order I am now in the process of complying with.
Oh, I know there will always be other squatters who will amble in uninvited, but from now on I will have to be on red alert and not let them stay. They gotta go! After all, I am in the house (the spiritual habitation on which I am working only at the pleasure of the Owner – one day it will be mine minus all the flaws and imperfections). I do not have unconditional assurance I can stay if I fail to do my best to keep all unwanted squatters out and to drive out all who somehow sneak by me – again I need the grace of God. He is very patient and will continue to be that way if He sees that I am trying to please Him. He does not demand immediate perfection, only a living faith in Him, and that includes always rebounding after a failure great or small. I – that is, we – must NEVER give up after a defeat.
Several Faults Uncovered by My Test
It has been said that confession is good for the soul, but hard on the reputation. But despite whatever damage it will do to my reputation, here are the mistakes I made – or rather, that GOD uncovered to my shame – in my testing: 1) a shortfall of love, and 2) a lack of patience. I’ll not go into detail and show you how God revealed my blemishes to me. Suffice it to say they were patently a part of me. I will confess this however – and I hang my head in humiliation to uncover this ugly blemish: I who am so quick to say that all godly men should love their wives and that patience is required to be holy, was found wanting in this particular test in both areas, and my patient, dedicated wife suffered for their lack.
But God was good to both of us and in a day or two He told me sternly (no, it was not an actual voice), “How many times have you deplored the conspicuous lack of love in Christians today and yet here you are, clearly guilty of the same blemish you found so offensive in others!” God also laid bare my unwarranted impatience with her for the slightest mistake. This woman was oozing love and patience out of her pores, and I had the temerity to find fault! God saw the unsightly wart on my character and took me to task for it.
This too is what I have said often before: If you follow close after God and search His Word and listen to his prophets who speak forth words of “edification, exhortation and comfort” (1 Cor. 14.3) he will continually give you the edification (building up), exhortation and comfort you need. He stopped me in my tracks and placed my feet back on the pathway of love. There were other things about me that God showed me, things you would term niggling and not worth noting, but if they displease the Savior who died for even the small sins, they are important to me.
I am not completely healed yet (I was sick before this latest bout) and I don’t know if I ever will be, but the discomfort, moderate pain and complete upsetting of my life have been more than worth what He did within me and for me. To be blunt, God chastened me and I am forever grateful for such personal love lavished on me from the Almighty God who didn’t have to do it.
Comments