But they were a proud and arrogant bunch. They dismissed the message, saying, 'Things aren't that bad. We can handle anything that comes. If our buildings are knocked down, we'll rebuild them bigger and finer. If our forests are cut down, we'll replant them with finer trees.' ...But the people paid no mind to him who hit them, didn't seek God-of-the-Angel-Armies. (9:9-10, 13)Oh, that really got my attention this morning. God doesn't admire and exalt my ability to analyze a situation and get out of it or make the best of it. He doesn't want me focused on how to get myself out of a rock and a hard place. He wants my focus on Him as the first and last plan, the only plan. He alone is my help, He alone is running the world.
For a child has been born - for us! He'll take over the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness. His ruling authority will grow, and there'll be no limits to the wholeness he brings. (9:5-6)That sounds like Someone I can trust - Someone running the world with no limits to the wholeness he brings.
Even though I know this about Jesus, I still operate more out of my own strength than out of His. I rely more on my own ability to formulate a Plan B than on His one and only Plan A, which is Himself. Tim Keller provides a little insight as to why any of us do this:
"When you go to Jesus for help, you get from him far more than you had in mind.
"But when you go to Jesus for help, you also end up giving to him far more than you expected to give.
"...if God seems to be unconscionably delaying his grace and committing malpractice in our life, it's because there is some crucial information that we don't yet have, some essential variable that's unavailable to us. If I could sit down with you and listen to the story of your life, it may well be that I would join you in saying, 'I can't understand why God isn't coming through. I don't know why he is delaying.' Believe me, I know how you feel, so I want to be sensitive in the way I put this. But when I look at the delays of God in my own life, I realize that a great deal of my consternation has been rooted in arrogance. I complain to Jesus, 'Okay, you're the eternal Son of God, you've lived for eternity, you created the universe. But why would you know any better than I do how my life should be going?'...We're not God, but we have such delusions of grandeur that our self-righteousness and arrogance sometimes have to be knocked out of our heart by God's delays." [King's Cross]What is there to say really, except to confess my arrogance. I don't want to be given over to my insatiable appetites (9:19) as the Israelites were. I need the help of the One who can make me whole. No other plan than Him.
2 comments:
WOW! thank you!
I missed Isa 9:9-13 first time I read it Stac...I was reading like I was bored with today's passage but when I read your comment, it was LIFE to me. You know, I think God was The 8:13 Boulder blocking our way when Bob lost his job of 27 years at Hope--was it really 27 years there? Seems ages ago. But this verse you wrote about gives light to me cause I believed if our buildings were knocked down, we'd pull together and build finer buildings, finer forests----and I didn't pay mind to Him Who knocked them down. Ministry was far too more important than my seeking Him. I had faced 10 miscarriages (is that right???!!) and rape and abuse and 7 years of infertility on the 4th child and on and on AND I was an overcomer and oh-so-arrogant. I could NOT get over being "let go" from our church. Severe depression so crippled me beyond belief and there was my Waiting LORD, The Boulder in my way. He stopped me and picked my lifeless frame up. Loved what you had to say cause I still deal with arrogance to this day and we always will til we hang it up. HE is an Amazing Counselor! Prince of Wholeness. And in midst of a little Malpractice over here, I am so blessed! It's not about information but all about transformation from this corruption under my compulsions to be successful to a much better place of finding Him in the midst. Loved your post! Hope to see you soon.
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