The Works of God

God sent three brilliant warning flares across my sky the past two days.

The first was reading a stunningly self-centered, self-justifying and self-righteous communication on a long-resolved issue.  Even the language that attempted at god-talk pointed back to the person writing it.  I had not seen anything like that for a long time.

The person writing it had experienced suffering of a kind.  But in letting his own sense of reality govern everything, unanchored to anything except his own, finite understanding of events, almost everything he had experienced was turned into a personal affront, virtually every perceived hurt a rationale for sin.

He is stuck in his own head, and surrounded by people ready to help him stay there rather than fight it.  Our culture celebrates such self-justifying behavior.

Yet, it was not so far from where my heart wants to go.  I understand that desire to be “right.”  I know how ready I am to justify my actions.

I need something – or rather, someone – bigger, stronger, and better than me to keep me from going in that direction.

The second was in watching the young couple I mentioned on Friday keep themselves anchored to something much bigger than they are.  Watching their son struggle in his discomfort, knowing he had a major surgery coming in a few hours, I remembered the temptation to despair.  Yet, they did not despair.  The young dad referenced or quoted scripture.  The young mom talked of God and his goodness in making their son just the way he is.  And the tears came.  “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” is no contradiction.

The third flare came in my one-year Bible reading for Saturday, from Psalm 119:97-104.  See how many times the writer of this section references something other than himself:

Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the aged,
for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from every evil way,
in order to keep your word.
I do not turn aside from your rules,
for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.

I know my heart is prone to sin, so I am grateful that God sent these three warnings to help me:

• I do not want to be governed by my sinful heart; the example I saw was entirely ugly and hopeless.
• I was encouraged by a younger couple remembering the promises of God.
• And I was reminded by the Psalmist that it is God who provides, protects, guides and teaches.

All for God’s glory, and for my good.