When We Don't Ask - Day 151 Month 5-31 Week 22-4
Today's Reading (Bible in 1 year)
Joshua 9, Psalm 119:121-144, Jeremiah 32:1-15, John 23-17:12
When We Don’t Ask
They “did not ask for the counsel of the LORD (Joshua 9:14).” The inhabitants of Gibeah were scared for their lives and therefore tricked the leaders of Israel to believe they were from a far country so Israel vowed they would not hurt them. This is exactly the thing that God warned them about, which was not to spare anyone. I believe this came back to negatively affect Israel’s ability to take the entire promised land.
With good intentions we make decisions every day. Many of those decisions would be wiser if we had listened to the counsel of God. Now what is cool is God knows what decision we’re going to make before we make it, and He has adjusted the mould of our plan because of that decision. I’ve mentioned before that we should not have bought this house. God had provided for us in such a way that we would be able to retire in 2022. However, we bought this house. The property is beautiful but the house was a disaster that is slowly being transformed to a beautiful home. However, to accomplish what we have so far, I needed to work some long part time hours for 3 years in the local hardware store. We have spent a huge amount of funds on this home to get it to its current condition and we still have more to go. This would not have happened if we had listened to the counsel of God, but we didn’t. Interesting though, this may have been God’s plan but we will never know because we never asked.
I mentioned that God knows what decisions we are going to make. So God has provided within what we believe was a wrong decision, friends and relationships that we would not have had if we had not made the decision. We have insights into the town that we are in and we have been able to help some people. We have grown to love many folks around us and Syl has been able to accomplish more in our area with her art, than she ever did before moving to this area. So God can take the most unwise decision and turn it for His good purposes. In fact, at this time and in this place, I can say that God has called us to where we are, right now! This is a cycle that we have done over and over again. But God has continued to make our questionable and hasty decisions good.
My message today is that by listening to God’s counsel, we may have actually retired in 2022. We may have been in this area with a lot less frustration and a lot less work but the relationships we’ve developed may have been accomplished easier and without me working at the hardware store. We will never know. All I can say is that I hope we have broken the cycle this time and will ask God’s counsel in future decisions. When we make decisions whether good or bad, we know that God is with us as Jesus' followers.
As I read the end of today’s reading in John, I was enlightened to a fact that is obvious but sometimes I forget. Jesus says “Behold, an hour is coming , and has already come for you to be scattered … and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me (John 16:32).” When everyone ran away, and Peter denied Him, Jesus had the Father standing with Him throughout the interrogation and torture they put Him through leading to His crucifixion. God only stepped away at the last moment, the point of death when Jesus said “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” Jesus was forsaken by God for a short time because a perfect God cannot be in the presence of sin so He supernaturally took all the pain and rejection from God the Father on our behalf. We only need to believe (have sincere faith) in Jesus to avoid separation from God.
Through all the challenges we’ve endured with this home, God has stood with us and we have not been forsaken. I, for one, think this is very cool.
Have a great day!
Steve
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