November 08, 2012
Suffer the Consequences
If my kids were about
to make a decision that had dire consequences I would first try to dissuade
them. Second I would tell them, “If this
doesn’t work out the way you want, then I don’t want to hear about it.” The
day after the election I feel the same about those bemoaning unemployment. I
don’t want to hear anyone say that they can’t find a job in their field or they
can’t find a job that pays better than entitlements. I imagine that God gets
an ear full of hearing believers complain when they suffer the consequences of their
actions. We too are not above expecting to get what we perceive as spiritual
entitlements.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Sometimes my heart churns out inexpressible admiration, praise, and adoration for God because of the ways He spins our minds together for the extraction of ideas which otherwise would go unthought. I chose Habakkuk 1:5 as the text to write a short piece for our church’s advent booklet this year. Now, this verse, by itself, seems like it is expressing sugar and pie and everything else tasty and nice, “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” But Habakkuk is speaking to Judah at the end of the seventh century BC. He has metaphorically asked God why wickedness is prevailing, and verse five begins God’s reply. What is to be seen amongst the nations, what wonder, what astonishment, are the Chaldeans! Oh! This ain’t gonna’ be pretty! Yet it’s a work God says He is going to do, a work He says will be unbelievable. That He states this at the first of His reply flavors a notion of something good this way coming. And it is, because it is very destructive, then it is very constructive. Between these is where consequence fits into the schemes of our lives.
-----We love God. So everything works for our good. So in between some of everything and our good often stands disaster. Consequences. They may not be consequential to our own actions. You didn’t vote for the communizer, nor did I. Yet we will both bear the consequences of those who did. And there are countless other consequences slamming us from the doings of others, as there are even more slamming us after our own doings. Consequences are the ordinary course of this temporal life, because so is wrong doing. But in the process of many construction projects is a demolition of something. It usually isn’t pretty, at least from the perspective of what’s being demolished, and usually from any other perspective as well. But after the demolition comes the construction, which looks better, until the last finish nail is driven. Then it looks great, the completion of what Habakkuk would not believe if told, a millennium of splendid righteousness before evil is dunked in the lake as we head off into a perfect eternity.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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