Your words are a doorway that lets in light, giving understanding to the thoughtless. Psalms 119:130
This morning the teaching was all about complacency, where we simply accept our state and even though we may not like it, we complain, blame others… We accept it and are not willing to make any changes.
This afternoon, my wife and I went to an appointment and she had other things to do and we did not want to leave the kids home alone all day, so I took the bus taxi home. Luckily one pulled up behind us as I got out for the first part of the trip. But then I had to change buses and had to wait for around 1 hour.
As with most people I got anxious and frustrated. But as usual the Lord put in my mind a few truths which changed it quickly. The main point is he is in charge and we are to have contentment. Or be content with the circumstances we are in. The Lord reminded me he is in control of all things and if he wants to make me wait, I will wait. And that I had nothing better to do with my time.
So with that truth in my mind, I was patient, did not complain or allow myself to be anxious anymore. This is the first part of the teaching, the second goes back to this morning’s teaching of complacency. Because complacency and contentment are two different things, and seem to contradict each other, but they don’t.
The difference is in our daily lives we are to have the attitude of doing whatever we need to do to be successful, and not be comlacent. This translates to everything, your health, wealth and Spiritual life. Whatever you do we are to do it at the highest level. I have been told I am tenacious, and for the most part I am. I always like to know how to do things at the highest level and then perform like that. And God wants and expects it from us all.
But there is the other side of it which is why are you doing it? Is it for your glory? To get praise from men? And also does it ruin your life from the standpoint of expecting everything to always work out perfect so you do not understand or have contentment? God allows things in our life which slows us down. Like my time today, if I had my car it would have been 20 minutes to get home, it took about 1:30. My old man would have been very frustrated. But then my old man would not have waited for taxis, he would have taken a normal taxi and paid the difference in cost. My wife is the one who is a little demanding about things like that and spending money foolishly. I spent around $2 dollars instead of closer to $50. To me it is nothing to spend $50 for my comfort, but doing that is why I never used to have money, and now we do. Another lesson learned!
The point of it is we have to know who is in control of our circumstances and what the Lord is working into us. In human nature, old man, we are lazy to do things we should do, and quick to do things we shouldn’t. Just like Paul wrote about as read yesterday in Romans.
These days are worse than ever of men wanting everything and they want it now, but they do not want to change anything in themselves to achieve it. The education system is training the people to be that way. We want to be healthy and look good and sexy, without eating correctly and working out. We want to be rich and successful without putting any effort into it. Seeking the easy way out and wondering why we did not have success? SWe like the new doctrines of grace and or confession or similar so we do not have to do any work to change to be the man God wants us to be.
Men are complacent and lazy, and on the other side impatient when we have to wait for something. We complain about things on both sides. And God allows us to be in these situations to teach us, but we do not listen, instead we allow human nature to kick in and we complain and become demanding.
This and many other reasons is why God sees us as evil, and we see ourselves as good. We are complacent on that as well, not taking time to allow the Spirit of God to show us who we are in his eyes.
These messages to me are not new, many times he reminds me of things like this. The words he used today were different, but the same message.
There are many messages like this where the Lord will show you how evil you are in his eyes, but you do not let him. One of the biggest is in your own family, how we show favoritism to our family, especially the ones who are best with us and we like the most. Most families have elephants in the room and ignore them in favor of not rocking the boat. So we stay and accept the dysfunction and sin in our lives because it is our family and we are required to do so. And so it also sucks us in and we accept it all as OK, when it is not in the eyes of God.
The last example of family is a tough tightrope to walk. As in life in general. How much should you communicate with family and in what aspects of life? As an example I wrote about before, which is religion and my family. Because they are catholic, and my aunt wants me to take my dad to the church, and thinks I am being selfish because I won’t. Even after making it clear to her that if I take him to church, then I share in his sin and dysfunction the catholic church brings. If my dad and aunt want to go to a church which has all kinds of idols even after the Lord has made it clear we are not to. That is their business, I tell them how wrong it is, but they do not listen nor believe me. But even so I cannot participate in it at any level.
Another perfect example of how we are evil when we think we are good. We do the church thing thinking it is pleasing to God, when it is not. As a past catholic, I could see god looking down on us all with a big smile and happy we were worshipping Mary and the saints as if we are all one big happy family.
As said before the list is long as to the things we do which we believe are good, but God sees as bad. And even if we see them as bad, most of the time we turn the other way and do them anyway because otherwise it makes us selfish or evil in the eyes of others. Like with my aunt, it would have been easier to please her and do what she wanted, but then that would mean I am not doing what God wanted.
After coming to know the Spirit and God, I really cannot go back to the sin he has shown me and pretend like it is all Ok, and we are all going to heaven because we believe in our religious god who does not exist, yet we make him to be the same god as the one in the bible. However the God I know and worship is NOT the same god the religious people worship, even though they read the bible and believe it is the same god.