Wisdom has built her house,
She has hewn out her seven
pillars;
She has slaughtered her meat,
She has mixed her wine,
She has also furnished her table.
She has sent out her maidens,
She cries out from the highest
places of
the city,
“Whoever is simple, let him turn
in here!”
As for him who lacks
understanding, she
says to him,
“Come, eat of my bread
And drink of the wine I have
mixed.
Forsake foolishness and live,
And go in the way of
understanding...."
Proverbs 9:1-6
_____________________________________________________________
So
I exhausted myself and my brain thinking positively.
There was
so much more I could have relied upon, so much peace and power available to me.
I had disadvantaged
myself because I didn’t know Scripture, and I really didn’t know how to talk to God. I’d been too busy absorbing
the feel-good, secular wisdom smorgasbord. Because I didn’t know God’s word –
hadn’t embraced it as my own to guide
my life – I was easily led astray, buying and swallowing the charade along with
so much of the world.
Admittedly,
with some pride, I considered myself to be a well-educated, university-graduated,
pseudo-intellectual, seldom stopping to consider that this highly promoted
philosophy might be woefully lacking, or false.
After all, the professors who had taught me were intelligent; many published
books on their specialty. They were experts in their fields. As an
underclassman, I’d been intimidated by them; I dutifully ingested everything they
said – hook, line and sinker. Had they sunk me beyond sustainable life, into
unrecoverable depths?
Now I felt duped
and confused, and not just because my red blood cell count was so low. I abhor
being lied to or led astray. And I’m often deficient in patience, so I wanted
answers, and I wanted them fast. Desperate,
I needed them right now! The answers to life; the answers to my pain; the answers
to – everything!
One half of
my brain knew I needed the Bible’s
words; the other half questioned if the bulk of it had anything to say to me
personally. I’d opened it on several occasions in a good-intentioned attempt to
read it cover-to-cover, and failed miserably. I’d struggle, move to another
section, and then eventually lose momentum due to frustration. Even small Bible
studies at church didn’t motivate me to open my Bible – too much – to really study it between gatherings.
In high
school I’d read through the Gospels and other sections of the New Testament,
without memorizing any passages. To make matters worse, many in our present
church considered the Old Testament to be little more than a historical
perspective on a group of nomadic, warring people. If their assessment were
true, what did that Jewish history have to do with me? So many people told me it was really just written by a bunch of
men and wasn’t really relevant for anyone today.
I guess I
approached reading the Bible in the same manner as when I considered reading
classics like War and Peace. When I
had the patience and time to wade
through its voluminous binding, I’d do so. In my heart and nagging conscience,
I knew I needed to read the entire
Bible. Sometime. But there never
seemed to be enough of that precious commodity. Until that time suddenly
materialized, I was content to obtain my information second-hand.
Ironically,
foolishly, I was willing to put the
fate of my life – and eternal soul –
into the hands of others. I was unwilling to do my own homework.
I was,
essentially, a spiritually lazy, two-timing Christian, willing to follow the
secular world in its promise of quick, earthly fulfillment, and then running to
God to seek His wisdom and intervention in the tough issues of life. Being stuck
in a hospital bed – precariously balanced between life and death – was
definitely one of those tough issues.
Worn out
psychologically, I finally gave up the positive thinking and abandoned myself
to God for help.
In His
infinite love and mercy, He answered my meager, halting prayers. Not in a
manner I would have chosen, but in a way that would violently sift the sand
upon which I’d built my life. First He’d teach me that He, not I, was the center of the universe, and then
He’d replace my bloated, contrary heart with a new, contrite one. After
breaking my will, my mind, and my heart He’d raise up a transformed woman from
the ashes.
Like Jacob
wrestling in the wilderness with God – demanding that God bless him on his own
terms – I was on the threshold of the Peniel
of my life: the juncture when you see
the face of God; where God blesses you on His terms and sometimes finds it necessary to cripple you before
bestowing that cherished, priceless blessing. He uses many methods of
disciplining His children and bending them to yield to His will. Indeed, He
sometimes finds it necessary to use extreme situations and measures to bring
you into the presence of His healing power and transforming grace.
Being
confined to bed – my life hanging by a thread, my mind near collapse from
loneliness, boredom, and fear – was bad, but it was going to get oh, so much worse.
God would
allow me to be crushed – spiritually, emotionally, physically. The
requirement for healing would be complete and unconditional surrender before life-changing transformation commenced.
I couldn’t
escape it; and I wasn’t going to like His tactics or the process one bit.
________________________________________
NEXT WEEK: The end of life begins…
Before I go this week, let me leave you with what are known
as the Four Deadly Questions, written
by apologist Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries. Think carefully. How would you answer them? (Not someone else. You.) Be honest. In your
answering, you may find you’ve been living life dangerously and taken too much
for granted…
1. What
do you mean by that?
How do you
define your terms? Can you define them? (It is often said that he who defines
the terms wins the argument.)
2. Where
do you get your information?
Is your
source reliable? Where did they get their
information? Is it fact or opinion? (Don’t be fooled by the confident and
self-assured.)
3. How
do you know it’s true?
Transfer the
burden of proof to the other person. Where, or on what or who is your
“faith” placed? (If someone pronounces arrogantly, sagely, “No one can know truth,” you need to ask, “How do you know that’s true?” They’re usually the ones who
adamantly claim that it’s true that
no one can know “truth,” and there isn’t any “truth” to know anyway! It might
sound romantic and deep in a college philosophy class, but it won’t get you too far in math!)
The underlying question here really is, “Why
should I believe you?”
4. What
if you’re wrong?
Have you
been living a life of illusion…?
Thanks for joining me.
Until next week!
Blessings,
Blessings,
Andrea
No comments:
Post a Comment