God created us to
be free. He created us with the ability
to choose. Right out of the gate we made
the wrong choice; we chose no to listen and obey what God had told us to do; we
decided to choose to do what we wanted to do. Yes, we were tempted by Satan,
listening to what he had to say about God and what we should be desiring. But the ball was in our court and we made the
wrong choice. No matter who we blamed,
it was in the end our bad, and we still continue, even after all the chaos and
consequences that wrong choice caused and cost.
God did not create
puppets. He created people whom He loved
and wanted to be in relationship with.
He gave us all we could ever want and need but we continually reject it
and think we can do better. He is a
Fountain of Living Water and we continue to build our own little cisterns that
quickly break and can’t hold water. He
provided a rule and reign that was holy and righteous, filled with love, joy,
and peace, but we wanted a king like everyone else had even though that king
did not have our best in mind but wanted power and control over us, eventually
taking away all our freedom and making us slaves.
And today the
‘beat goes on’ and we continue to do things our way even though we know our
track record for making bad choices.
What’s up with that?
We have a God who
says, “If my peoples who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and
seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and
will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
What is our response? “I, God,
have called and you refuse to listen; I have stretched out my hand to you and
no one heeded; you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my
reproof. You hated knowledge and did not
choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel.”
God offers us a
Fountain of Living Water and we keep choosing our puny little cisterns that
continually break and hold no water. We
continually choose our way to live and our way of doing things, thinking that
we know best. What’s up with that?
God’s response is
to stand back and let us have our own way. “Therefore they shall eat the fruit
of their way, and have their fill of their own devices.” So bad is our behavior that it even causes
God to say what is not in His heart, what is not what He does at all because He
can’t. “Because you have ignored all my
counsel and would have none of my reproof, I will laugh at your calamity. When
you call I will not answer; when they seek me they will not find me.”
We know the whole
Story of God and we know that is not what God did. He continually hears us, sees our mess, and
always comes to our rescue. In the end
He sent His own Son to clean up the mess we made and to die for our sin and our
rebellion so we could be back in relationship with God. Behold, what manner of love is that?
At some point in
my life I, like the son who was stuck in the mire and mess of the pig sty,
realized something. Oprah calls it a
“ha-ha moment”. That wayward son came to
the end of his self, the end of his ‘doing it my way’, and truly came to his
senses and realized how good he had it at home with his father.
I realized I was
slugging my way through the pig sty, trying unsuccessfully to make do with my
waterless, empty cisterns when I could be swimming in the Fountain of Living
Water. Everything changed for me, most
important my perspective on God and what I wanted my life to be about. I now know that when my way is truly God’s
Way, all will be well. My prayer is that
everyone will come to that point in their life and have that “ha-ha moment”,
and leave their broken cisterns, just as the woman at the well left her water
jug after her encounter with Jesus, and come and enjoy the Fountain of Living
Water, who is God Himself. I pray that
for all people and all nations. Then God
in His amazing steadfast love will heal each and every one of us and will heal
our land.
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