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Written by Jim Guffey, July 12, 2005
Sometimes, as a matter of course,
things break. Or more precisely, things go wrong.
These last three weeks in Guatemala have been a perfect case in point. So many things that happened were not in the plan, or even changed the plan completely. Here is an incomplete list of some of the things:
The night we arrived we had an
accident on the highway. Since we've been here it has rained almost daily. Several roads in the town are closed and under construction, necessitating the use
of absolutely horrendous dirt roads which truly rattle the brain. Our truck has
broken down three (count ‘em, 3) times in three weeks.
One night the boat ran out of gas on the lake. One of our taxis broke
down in the middle of a big puddle (small lake). We rented a motorcycle that
got a flat tire. We returned from showing a movie in the boat late at night and
our taxi didn't show in the middle of a driving rainstorm. The main road out
of Guatemala
City was closed
causing a three-hour delay. We were robbed.
I'm sure there's more that I
can't remember but you get the idea. So why does God let or make all these things
happen? The answer might be amazingly simple: for me, it's simply that I don't
know. Nor do I need to know.
Job had a similar yet much worse
occasion to question God. And he did. He
wanted to meet face-to-face with God to find out why things happened to him that he did not think he deserved. And God's response?
The Bible in basic
English says it like this: Job 40:2
(BBE) Will he who is protesting give teaching to the Ruler of all? Let him who has
arguments to put forward against God give an answer.
And Job indicates he understood
that he had no right to question the Almighty God with this response: Job 40:4
(BBE) Truly, I am of no value; what answer may I give to you? I will put my hand
on my mouth.
This is where I find myself far
too often, trying to take back words or thoughts I had of my displeasure with the inconvenience of
the moment. Being frustrated because of a road closure that
took me three hours to pass through only to find that I was in a place to help somebody later who needed help. Having our truck break down in a strange town which led us to a
mechanic who needed to hear about Jesus. Being robbed in the jungle and
yet being able to get a Bible tract into the robbers hands.
And yet I still do it. I get frustrated, or angry because of the inconveniences
I encounter when, many times if I would just give them some time to play out I would see God's hand in them.
Why do we get angry over things
that happen in our lives which inconvenience, or trouble or hurt us? The answer
is really basic. Because we own our lives. We have not given them to God. I'm not going to quote the
verses again that talk of living sacrifices, being crucified with Christ, bought with a price, etc. etc. etc. We all know that we are supposed to be servants to God and to each other.
So why is it, that we can't seem to learn this simplest of lessons? God
owns our lives. If we could learn this, our lives would be so much simpler. How?
Consider this. As a business owner I have employees who work for me. Let's
say I am the master and my employees are the servants (just talk to them and they will tell you this is probably accurate…). When a customer drives into and damages a piece of my equipment that costs me several
thousand dollars to fix, my employees (servants) don't seem to have the same problem that I have. They still get paid, they don't lose any money and they don't have to pay for the repair. Yes, in fact the smile never leaves their face. Or let's say
I ask an employee to drive my car to receive some piece of merchandise and return it to the store. Halfway to the destination the engine blows up. A tow truck
is dispatched and takes the car to a garage, where several thousand dollars in repairs are needed. My employee (servant) still receives their pay even for the time they're not driving, and the car is not
their responsibility so they don't lose anything. Only I (the master) deal with
the problem. Once again the smile never leaves their face.
So how simple is that? The master (God) hires you and you in fact agree to work for Him.
He buys for you everything you have because you come to him with nothing. You're
clothes, car, family, house; everything. And especially your
money and your time. He provides it all for you. Do we deny that it all belongs to Him? If it does, when the
car breaks down we should simply go to Him and say "Sorry about that but the car broke down.
What do you want me to do?" Or when we don't have enough money to pay
the bills we should again go to Him and say "You are out of money and I need to know how you want to proceed." The smile should never leave our face.
Then why do I have a problem
when I get stuck in traffic? When an unexpected repair takes me out of my budget? When I have a problem with a member of my family?
When I lose my job? Etc., etc., etc. That's
easy. Because I don't have a master, I AM THE MASTER. I AM, I AM, I AM, I AM, I AM. See a sad pattern? I am the master because I want to control. I want to control
my life and sometimes even other people's lives. So now, instead of God being
the master and we the servants, some of us want to be the master too. In fact,
we openly question why things happen in our lives, like Job. Because
it's not fair or we don't deserve it. But when we think or say this, in
its simplest form we are confronting the master who made or allowed it to happen. We
are questioning our Lord. And God's response?
“Will he
who is protesting give teaching to the Ruler of all?”
So we want to be in control. What's wrong with that? After all, are
we not taught from an early age that we need to be self-controlled, self-enlightened, self-confident, self-disciplined and
self-reliant? "He's a real self-made man!"
Isn't that a compliment? In this world, yes. In God's economy, no.
So what's wrong with all the self words? I don't know, why don't we go back to the beginning of creation and see what it
says.
Ge 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that
in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Notice anything? Satan tells Eve, YOU shall not die, in the day YOU eat thereof, YOUR eyes shall be opened, and YOU shall be as gods... What does God
do? He controls things. He makes
them, he takes them and he breaks them, among other things, at his good pleasure. Satan
said to Eve “Eat the fruit and you can control your own life." And as my
good friend Gene Veal http://seegod.org/featured_article.htm has said, mankind has been trying to control things ever since. Welcome to self.
In our day and age of the psychology
and New Age (mysticism repackaged) movements, we are encouraged everywhere to fix ourselves.
If we can only get in touch with our inner self, we can somehow fix ourselves.
How silly is this? You don't need to look far for the problem with yourself;
it is your self. Turn to God fully and you lose your problem; you lose your self. Jesus tells us about self in Mt 16:24 ¶ Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me. Not look for himself, discover himself,
find himself, improve himself; he must deny himself. Deny himself. Deny himself. Deny
himself. What part of deny himself don't we get? Sometimes it appears that we think the verse says "deny Christ". Instead of the Christ-centered life too many people live the self-centered life. And when that life gets broken where do they turn?
To the very thing that broke it in the first place.
The self.
I know this is long but please
read it through. I have a broken life and I am not happy with my "self". So I turn to books and people who tell me to improve my "self". I need a new self-image. Because my current
self-image is no good. Duh! But
wait, did you not hear me say I'm broken? When the engine in my car breaks does
it repair itself by looking inside itself? Or does the mechanic repair it by
looking inside and then comparing what he sees with other broken engines? No. He has a manual that tells him what the engine is supposed to look like and be doing
and how to put it back into the right condition and maintain it. How silly it
would be to try to fix it by looking at other broken engines. Paul tells us this
below:
2Co 10:12 ¶ For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some
that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves,
and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
So, let's not
measure ourselves by comparing us to ourselves or comparing ourselves to each other.
This same warning applies to determining the brokenness of our lives. Many
times we may have a broken life by the worlds standard. But
that is not our standard as a Christian. Our standard is also our manual. It's called the Bible. It tells us what
a good engine looks like and how to keep it running. It tells us it's not about
what we think, but what He thinks.
2Co 10:17 But whoever has a desire for glory, let his glory be in the Lord. 18 For the Lord's approval of a man is not dependent on his opinion of himself, but on the Lord's opinion of him.
So the manual (the Bible) tells
us that the self is not good and we should deny it. Well then, what if we took
the "self" out and substituted "God" instead? A novel thought, isn't it?
Instead of me being SELF-CONTROLLED, I would be GOD-CONTROLLED. Controlled by God? That sounds better:
2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the
flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Instead of being SELF-ENLIGHTENED, I would be GOD-ENLIGHTENED:
Eph 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Wait, I thought it was all about
me, my happiness, my future, my life but it says "in the knowledge of him", "of his calling", "of his inheritance", "of his
power", and "of his mighty power". Maybe it's not about me…
Instead of being SELF-CONFIDENT, I would be GOD-CONFIDENT:
Eph 3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence
by the faith of him.
Instead of being SELF-DISCIPLINED, I would be GOD-DISCIPLINED:
Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children,
My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
And lastly, and probably most
importantly, instead of being SELF-RELIANT I would be GOD-RELIANT:
2Ch 16:8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and
horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the
LORD, he delivered them into thine hand.
How to fix your broken life, if you have
one? Get the manual, read the manual, study the manual and do what the manual
says. Oh yeah, and get rid of yourself.
Bye.
By the way, getting rid of yourself is
not easy. I know. But little by
little, step by step, in His time.
"If we were more open to receive and implement into our lives the instructions of the
word of God, we would not so often complain of the difficulty of the path we find ourselves upon."
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