Misinterpreting the Hand of God

townhall ^ | January 22, 2005 | Doug Giles

[isaiah55version11_0]

“The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles.”

King David Psalm 119.71

How many of you have prayed … believed … desired … hoped and worked for something, and then, in one fell swoop, all your efforts seemingly get crossed up and don’t pay off? And there you sit, gobsmacked, as you watch all your best work and dreams go straight down the crapper. Am I the only one who has stood next to life’s toilet and had this unfortunate point of view?

You see other people’s lives, and everything they touch seemingly turns to gold. No trials. No waiting. No pain for them!

And here’s the kicker. You know they’re no better than you. You know they have the same proclivities toward evil as you do. You know they, too, think most of Religious TV is an absolute ostentatious carnivalesque Elmer-Gantry-meets-Liberace side show. You know they, too, sneak a peak at Springer’s daily televised assault on humanity. You know they surreptitiously enjoy a dose of schadenfreude when something goes south for their nemeses. You know you’re not being singled out for being more evil than your fellow creepy mortals. You’re left thinking … hey, Yahweh … what gives? Cut me some slack here, why don’tcha?

To add further insult to festering injury, some seven-figure-a-year guy’s smarmy trophy-wife, who has not a care in the world, tells you, while you’re bleary eyed and disillusioned, to “Rejoice in all things.”

You know she’s right … you know you should rejoice even though she really grates your flesh. So … to acquiesce, you grunt a grin of mock civility … but inside you feel more lost than Anna Nicole Smith taking the FCAT. Your agitation with your situation is so bad that you’re even not too stoked about picking up your Bible and reading it anymore. Scriptures like “delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” have all the appeal of dirty dancing with Janet Reno. Why? Well … you tried to delight yourself in Him, yet your spiritual vision is still as blurred as Boris Yeltsin’s eyesight on a weekend vodka binge during a Russian blizzard.

And then you start thinking the blasphemous, “Yeah … what a friend I have in Jesus! With friends like Him … who needs enemies? If God loved me … if He really delighted in me … if His heart was toward me … then He wouldn’t treat me like this.”

Here’s where we need to tread lightly.

Right here, we had better understand that we are in a major spiritual minefield that is potentially deadly. The Evil One—not Michael Jackson, but Satan—is trying to tempt us to rail against God and make false inferences with regard to what is happening to us and completely blow off following Him.

To get out of this sticky situation, first of all understand that many things that may be cross to our desires are not cross to our good. Of the many names that God has, not one of them is Santa Christ or Sugar Daddy. Christian, do you realize that Abraham, Jacob, David, Job, Moses, Jeremiah, Jonah and a host of other biblical heavy weights had a ton of stuff that went contrary to their desires and endeavors, but were not contrary to their good? The sooner the Nuevo Saint of the New Millennium can swallow this jagged little pill, the quicker he’ll begin to mature. I know in most feel-good churches they don’t teach that any longer, but it is still in the scriptures.

Secondly, to help us understand cross acts of providence, we must realize that often God’s hand is set against us when His heart is set toward us. The Bible is Windex-like in its clarity about God really digging us and also having no problemo giving us a good life-lesson butt-whipping at the same time.

Listen. No man can conclude where the heart of God stands by His hand. Are you getting this? Look … God can and will kick butt and take names. He can penalize us for our weird penchants. He can spiritually smack us so hard that He makes Jackie Chan look like Urkel. All the while, He really really likes us. God loved his spiritual sons like Job and David, and in His love, He allowed for disastrous things to rock their world for their ultimate good.

So … watch out when you conclude personally or with regard to others that God’s heart is against those whom His hand is seemingly against. You might end up condemning the just whom God would not have unjustly condemned.

Thirdly, know that all cross providences that smack the saints are for the purpose of some noble good that God intends to prefer upon them. Take Joseph, for example. Joe got sold into slavery to a distant country through the envy and malice of his ministerial alliance. Then brother Joseph was falsely imprisoned after he radically obeyed God. Nevertheless, through all this intergalactic bad junk, The Dreamer was getting closer to his dream.

Put that in your irony bong and smoke it!

Check it out. What Joseph’s brothers sought to diminish … God used to promote. His brothers sold Joseph so that he would not be exalted over them, yet he was exalted because he was sold.

Hello!

My ClashPoint is this: We’ve got to remember, and I know this hurts all self-obsessed me-monkeys, but God is not the least bit obligated to give us a selfish, carefree, Yippee Land existence. He’s out to make us holy. And all these strange, deep, dark providences that believers meet with will help us morph into His likeness if (and that’s a big IF!) we handle them wisely with kid gloves. The Holy Spirit is out to work in us that which is pleasing in His sight and folks … our flesh does not do the electric slide in that direction. It usually takes a good shake down before we shape up.

Doug Giles' provocative weekly one-hour radio program, 'The Clash', has re-launched with several new features. Go to clashradio.com and hit 'listen live.'

[isaiah55version11_0]

ASV Php 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. 12I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. 13I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.

http://www.ccel.org/c/ccel/bcb/bcb.html

[the invisib1e hand]

been there, done that. alot.

[azhenfud]

"You see other people’s lives, and everything they touch seemingly turns to gold. No trials. No waiting. No pain for them!"

Ecclesiastes 5:11 When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?

[azhenfud]

"been there, done that. alot."

been there, still doing that. alot.

[stuartcr]

I don't believe that we are in a major spiritual minefield.

[marty60]

Covetness is one of the big ten. Everything you mentioned falls under that Commandment. GOD actually was trying to help us. But, many in America want them banished from public view.

[the invisib1e hand]

godspeed.

[null and void]

Have the t-shirt.

[goldstategop]

People must have faith. Everything else is secondary.

Denny Crane: "I look to two things: First to God and then to Fox News."

[wizr]

Ride God's roller coaster. It ain't easy, but it can be thrilling. FAITH....Fantastic Adventure In Thy Hands.

Thanks for a great read, applicable to us all.

[BibChr]

Good read. More cultural subreferences than a Dennis Miller rant!

Dan
Biblical Christianity web site
Biblical Christianity message board
Biblical Christianity BLOG

[Ff--150]

Ecc. 2 MSG: 26. God may give wisdom and knowledge and joy to his favorites, but sinners are assigned a life of hard labor, and end up turning their wages over to God's favorites. Nothing but smoke--and spitting into the wind.

[stuartcr]

2005...the world changes.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

Just because we don't see the immediate reasoning behind our trials and afflictions, doesn't mean that God doesn't ultiamtely have our best interests at heart.

Prayers are always answered - just sometimes not in the way that we want them to be answered.

I carry a line from the 23rd Psalm with me:

"Thy rod and thy staff - they comfort me."

The staff of protection and shelter - and the rod of discipline and correction. Both are comforting, because we know that no matter what happens, we'll emerge better in the long-run.

Being comforted by God's discipline - that's true obedience to Him and His word.

[Joann37]

He said some things that I've thought but never verbalized. He concludes with many examples of how Bible characters endured hardship and ultimately became victorious. A good read!!

[MissAmericanPie]

I think a majority of Christians have been here at least once. One could lay the blame for this at the feet of TV preachers that make God sound like a vending machine. Drop your prayer in the slot and out pops your new Caddy. But if that doesn't happen, then it's your fault for tilting the machine with lack of faith.

But the real reason, I believe, is laziness on the part of Christians who count on a preacher rather than invest in their own prayerful reading and understanding of the Bible. "I stand at the door gently knocking, he who opens it I will come in and sup with him.". The Holy Spirit is the best teacher of scriptures, laying out the toils and trials of biblical heroes.

Our frustration is compounded because we see no positive results from our failures and losses, I hate the word "loss", and nothing positive accomplished for their cost. Elijah was frustrated by this to the point of wanting to lay down and die. We may never know until we meet Him, and as American producers and problem solvers who are used to seeing results, this is very hard to accept.

But accept it we must, it is part and parcel of being dead in Christ. All we can do is shake it off and move on in faith.

[isaiah55version11_0]

.....being dead in Christ. ?????

ASV Rom 6:11 Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

ASV 1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

ASV Eph 2:5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved),

ASV 2Tim2:15 Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.

http://www.ccel.org/c/ccel/bcb/bcb.html

[azhenfud]

"Have the t-shirt."

What color's your shirt? If it's like mine, it has so many battle stains on it, it'd pass for tie-dyed....;-)