“They will drive you out from among men, your dwelling will be among the beasts of the field, and they will feed you with grass like oxen. They will wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times will pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He wants” (Daniel 4:25).
Sometimes when we think we are moving toward God, the direction we are actually moving is far from Him. Although we don’t have the honesty to admit it to ourselves, we are still fighting against God. Our plans are contrary to His purposes. And when that happens, we are lucky when God intervenes and stops our progress. In fact, God is being kind to us when He defeats our worldly ambitions and closes us to the consequences of our actions. When He puts us in a checkmate position, surrounds us, He is actually showing great love for us.
We need to understand that as long as God is still blocking our way and defeating us, it is a good sign. This is a sign that He is still trying to get us back on our path. The next stage of this process will be much worse: the stage in which God abandons us and abandons us to the futility and frustration of our own ways.
Nothing worse than being abandoned by God can be imagined, and yet the scriptures teach that He will do exactly that if we insist on not getting to the point when He blocks our way. Regarding those who stubbornly refused to “keep God in their knowledge,” Paul wrote that “God gave them over to a corrupt mind, to do what is unrighteous” (Romans 1:28). J.B. The explanation of Phillips’s statement is clear: God “allowed them to become slaves of their fallen minds.”
So when we find ourselves controlled by God, we should be grateful. Actually, he should have left us long ago, but by his grace he has not done so yet. We must respond correctly, both in word and deed, to the fact that God has blocked our way. When he has locked us in and left us nowhere to go, we must respond regret And Obedience. Instead of resentment, a big Admiration Must be our chosen response. After all, it is no disgrace to be put into checkmate by God. The humiliation that would follow would be to suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer – and he would be too much of a fool to learn the lesson he is trying to teach us.
“Every story of conversion is a story of blessed defeat” (CS Lewis).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com AreYouaChristian.com
