1 Peter 2:16
You are free, but still you are God's servants, and you must not use your freedom as an excuse for doing wrong.
Happy Wednesday to you my beautiful readers! We've officially reached the third quarter of this year! My God time is flying! I just want to take the time out really quick to thank you guys so much from the bottom of my merry heart for reading my posts and supporting my decision in January to resuscitate this page! I appreciate those who've stuck it out with me on up until right now. You guys rock!
Welp, let's get into some things. Shall we?
I've been carrying a burden in the form of trying to wrap my mind around the idea of free will. I attempted to investigate the scriptures, looking for this concept in the Bible to be somewhat disappointed. Disappointed in a good way though. Basically, I kept running into the goodness of God's salvation and the freedom that encompasses it.
I also discovered, that anytime an individual in the Bible ventured outside of the confines of God's divine instructions and therefore used their freedom arbitrarily, they wound up suffering greatly from the consequences of their actions.
I believe it was earlier this year or maybe sometime late last year, when I saw a status posted by an old high school friend posing somewhat of a quandary on free will. He wanted to know if God really gave us the option of free will if in fact eventually we're going to be led to His will anyway. He went on to mention how he's seen people go after certain things with good intentions and when these endeavors fell through, they were forced to hold conversations with others on the premise that it wasn't God's will for them. I could sense his disdain for God's will and his confusion with the supposed belief that God gives the choice of free will. I thought it was a legitimate argument.
Now, after having yet met another crushing disappointment of my own just this year, I found myself having a similar sad conversation this guy spoke of. I cringed when those same words came out of my mouth, "I guess it wasn't God's will."
I think we need to understand something, God's will IS THE ONLY WILL! Anything outside of His will is REBELLION. Simply put. There is no such thing as free will. You either accept His will or you don't.
We were never created to be self-reliant beings. Yes, in the beginning God gave us dominion and authority. However, all of this is available within the governing factor of God's will and does not pertain to free will. Once again, anything outside of God's will is rebellion which induces limited ability, limited mobility, and the increased odds of things not manifesting favorably.
Anyone who would like to argue against this will more than likely do so with the evidence that some heavy manipulation was involved to avoid the invoices of rebellion. Anyway, we're going to have to separate the horses from the unicorns. Meaning our fantasies from God's vision.
Proverbs 16:9
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
God's set up for our lives is not a la carte. We can't just pick and choose what we want it to be. That's actually a soulish wordly mentality. The plans that He thinks towards us are concrete and final. We're so guilty of going off whims and unctions calling it Holy Spirit when it's just random desires to bring a fantasy into fruition. Then when the mirage dissipates, we resort to pointing the finger at God's will by halfheartedly accepting that it was never His will to begin with.
What in the spirit of schizophrenia is going on here?
I don't care how cute and friendly this illusion that free will provides, it will never compare to God's ultimate will which is why God will never ever ever present it to you as a secondary option. Proverbs 16:9, can be charted as irrefutable proof that this is why God has to continuously test our hearts on a regular basis because it will almost always get carried away with it's own schemes and generic plans.
Destiny begins where YOU end. God's promises are fulfilled when your plans are forgone. Did you know that in comparison to God's infinite wisdom, you have absolutely no idea what God's will for your life looks like? This doesn't mean though, that you can't become acquainted with it.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm so done playing tic tac toe with God. I always lose. I'm tired of being able to relate to David's laments in Psalm 6:6 where he talked about being weary from groaning, flooding his bed with weeping, and drenching his couch with tears. The only reason David felt this way is because of his own personal fleshly decisions that aroused a slew of collectors
.
I believe I myself have outpaced my physical enemies by God's grace of course. My current enemies are more mental. Yet, who wants to be constantly reminded of all of their failures when they can just hop off the unicorn and get on the horse! Ha! I pray that makes sense.
What's my recommendation? I recommend first honesty. We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that we've been taste testing God's will for too long which is why we keep getting disappointed. We're never going to be fulfilled with that method. No one has ever gotten full from eating samples at a grocery store.
We need to be mature enough to accept that God's will, will come with some things we might not necessarily feel we're cut out for. In that we must rebuke the feelings of inadequacy and reject all of these heroic hunches pointing in the opposite direction. The latter is how we end up in rebellion and this my friends is the worst place to be because you lose a nice portion of your covering, leaving you open to the blood hounds of hell! I am a living witness.
Lastly, we need to go back to The Source and request that He show us the last thing He told us to do that we rejected or ran from. This requires humility on our part because going to God with an "Ok so now what?" attitude will not cut it. Humble yourself, beloved and ask God,"Can you show me where I left off?"
You might be reading this and are thinking, "I wasn't willfully rebelling. I thought I was going in the right direction." That's fair. It be like that sometimes. I've been there too. I think that's where I am right now.
But I'm reminded of the time I bought myself a ticket to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Show one Sunday afternoon. It was held here at the Harris Theater in Downtown Chicago. I typically leave for any occasion early to arrive early. It is my inherent belief that if you're on time, you're late! I had a time in mind to leave where my trip planner estimated I would arrive close to an hour early. I decided I didn't want to be that early, so I chose to leave a little behind my original plan with confidence that I was only a few train stops away from the theater. #Negative
I realized upon waltzing out of the train station in my 3 inch chunky heels that I was going to be late if I didn't put some pep in my step. My GPS showed me I was about a block and a half away from where I was. Me,"Oh, I know where that is." I closed out of my GPS. stuffed my phone in my cargo bag, and walked dead into a hotel. I was confused. I asked the concierge if I were in the right place to see the dance show. Well why of course not! I was instructed to walk a block up and a block over.
To myself I'm like, "Are you kidding me! The show starts in 15 minutes!" I was kicking myself in the butt the entire time but adamantly holding onto a small snapshot in my mind of where I thought I was headed. My pride would not allow me to seek assistance from GPS. I just knew in my mind where I was going. Halfway, I swallowed it and reluctantly pulled my phone back out, reentered the address, and was given directions that had me make a 180 instead of a U-turn. I was so in my feelings. I was 5 minutes late with a dry mouth and an angry bladder.
Surprisingly, the show hadn't started so I had time to run to the bathroom to relieve myself and buy a bottle of water. The way my life is set up though, as soon as I made it into the auditorium to locate my seat, the lights were shut off and the curtains were drawn. I had to climb over three laps in the dark to get to my seat all while the dancers made their entrance onto the stage. Good and terrible.
Needless to say I enjoyed my little baldhead self. Here's the point I wanted to make, you alone don't know where you're going. Self confidence is great. Ambition is dope. But neither of these will hold up without God's will endorsing them. If you want to have your way, you're going to get lost and just like me, pride will kick in making the divine assistance you were once relying on appear as unattractive as hell. #Tragic.
There's this popular saying that God will not force Himself on you because He is a gentleman or what not. I tried my hardest to find out in the Bible if that were actually true and I couldn't. Instead I found God relentlessly pursuing those He called according to His purpose. Those who ran felt some pressure that forced them to turn around. Ask Jonah.
At the end of the day, time has become too expensive for us to insist on willingly and willfully protesting God's will because we feel like we have the right to exercise our own free will. It's starting to look like we're rallying for glitter when we were made for so much more!
I believe it was earlier this year or maybe sometime late last year, when I saw a status posted by an old high school friend posing somewhat of a quandary on free will. He wanted to know if God really gave us the option of free will if in fact eventually we're going to be led to His will anyway. He went on to mention how he's seen people go after certain things with good intentions and when these endeavors fell through, they were forced to hold conversations with others on the premise that it wasn't God's will for them. I could sense his disdain for God's will and his confusion with the supposed belief that God gives the choice of free will. I thought it was a legitimate argument.
Now, after having yet met another crushing disappointment of my own just this year, I found myself having a similar sad conversation this guy spoke of. I cringed when those same words came out of my mouth, "I guess it wasn't God's will."
I think we need to understand something, God's will IS THE ONLY WILL! Anything outside of His will is REBELLION. Simply put. There is no such thing as free will. You either accept His will or you don't.
We were never created to be self-reliant beings. Yes, in the beginning God gave us dominion and authority. However, all of this is available within the governing factor of God's will and does not pertain to free will. Once again, anything outside of God's will is rebellion which induces limited ability, limited mobility, and the increased odds of things not manifesting favorably.
Anyone who would like to argue against this will more than likely do so with the evidence that some heavy manipulation was involved to avoid the invoices of rebellion. Anyway, we're going to have to separate the horses from the unicorns. Meaning our fantasies from God's vision.
Proverbs 16:9
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
God's set up for our lives is not a la carte. We can't just pick and choose what we want it to be. That's actually a soulish wordly mentality. The plans that He thinks towards us are concrete and final. We're so guilty of going off whims and unctions calling it Holy Spirit when it's just random desires to bring a fantasy into fruition. Then when the mirage dissipates, we resort to pointing the finger at God's will by halfheartedly accepting that it was never His will to begin with.
What in the spirit of schizophrenia is going on here?
I don't care how cute and friendly this illusion that free will provides, it will never compare to God's ultimate will which is why God will never ever ever present it to you as a secondary option. Proverbs 16:9, can be charted as irrefutable proof that this is why God has to continuously test our hearts on a regular basis because it will almost always get carried away with it's own schemes and generic plans.
Destiny begins where YOU end. God's promises are fulfilled when your plans are forgone. Did you know that in comparison to God's infinite wisdom, you have absolutely no idea what God's will for your life looks like? This doesn't mean though, that you can't become acquainted with it.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm so done playing tic tac toe with God. I always lose. I'm tired of being able to relate to David's laments in Psalm 6:6 where he talked about being weary from groaning, flooding his bed with weeping, and drenching his couch with tears. The only reason David felt this way is because of his own personal fleshly decisions that aroused a slew of collectors
.
I believe I myself have outpaced my physical enemies by God's grace of course. My current enemies are more mental. Yet, who wants to be constantly reminded of all of their failures when they can just hop off the unicorn and get on the horse! Ha! I pray that makes sense.
What's my recommendation? I recommend first honesty. We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that we've been taste testing God's will for too long which is why we keep getting disappointed. We're never going to be fulfilled with that method. No one has ever gotten full from eating samples at a grocery store.
We need to be mature enough to accept that God's will, will come with some things we might not necessarily feel we're cut out for. In that we must rebuke the feelings of inadequacy and reject all of these heroic hunches pointing in the opposite direction. The latter is how we end up in rebellion and this my friends is the worst place to be because you lose a nice portion of your covering, leaving you open to the blood hounds of hell! I am a living witness.
Lastly, we need to go back to The Source and request that He show us the last thing He told us to do that we rejected or ran from. This requires humility on our part because going to God with an "Ok so now what?" attitude will not cut it. Humble yourself, beloved and ask God,"Can you show me where I left off?"
You might be reading this and are thinking, "I wasn't willfully rebelling. I thought I was going in the right direction." That's fair. It be like that sometimes. I've been there too. I think that's where I am right now.
But I'm reminded of the time I bought myself a ticket to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Show one Sunday afternoon. It was held here at the Harris Theater in Downtown Chicago. I typically leave for any occasion early to arrive early. It is my inherent belief that if you're on time, you're late! I had a time in mind to leave where my trip planner estimated I would arrive close to an hour early. I decided I didn't want to be that early, so I chose to leave a little behind my original plan with confidence that I was only a few train stops away from the theater. #Negative
I realized upon waltzing out of the train station in my 3 inch chunky heels that I was going to be late if I didn't put some pep in my step. My GPS showed me I was about a block and a half away from where I was. Me,"Oh, I know where that is." I closed out of my GPS. stuffed my phone in my cargo bag, and walked dead into a hotel. I was confused. I asked the concierge if I were in the right place to see the dance show. Well why of course not! I was instructed to walk a block up and a block over.
To myself I'm like, "Are you kidding me! The show starts in 15 minutes!" I was kicking myself in the butt the entire time but adamantly holding onto a small snapshot in my mind of where I thought I was headed. My pride would not allow me to seek assistance from GPS. I just knew in my mind where I was going. Halfway, I swallowed it and reluctantly pulled my phone back out, reentered the address, and was given directions that had me make a 180 instead of a U-turn. I was so in my feelings. I was 5 minutes late with a dry mouth and an angry bladder.
Surprisingly, the show hadn't started so I had time to run to the bathroom to relieve myself and buy a bottle of water. The way my life is set up though, as soon as I made it into the auditorium to locate my seat, the lights were shut off and the curtains were drawn. I had to climb over three laps in the dark to get to my seat all while the dancers made their entrance onto the stage. Good and terrible.
Needless to say I enjoyed my little baldhead self. Here's the point I wanted to make, you alone don't know where you're going. Self confidence is great. Ambition is dope. But neither of these will hold up without God's will endorsing them. If you want to have your way, you're going to get lost and just like me, pride will kick in making the divine assistance you were once relying on appear as unattractive as hell. #Tragic.
There's this popular saying that God will not force Himself on you because He is a gentleman or what not. I tried my hardest to find out in the Bible if that were actually true and I couldn't. Instead I found God relentlessly pursuing those He called according to His purpose. Those who ran felt some pressure that forced them to turn around. Ask Jonah.
At the end of the day, time has become too expensive for us to insist on willingly and willfully protesting God's will because we feel like we have the right to exercise our own free will. It's starting to look like we're rallying for glitter when we were made for so much more!
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