We Don't Get It

Wow. Tozer could be harsh sometimes! But that doesn't mean he wasn't right, because he was.

I think one of the most frustrating things to me is when Christians either don't pray and ask God what He wants or actually hear God and know what He's saying but refuse to obey.

I'm a big fan of asking God what He wants and hearing His will for my life. I want everything that He has for me and I know He will lead me perfectly. I believe He is an excellent leader (despite my moments of doubt) and I trust Him with my life. So it bothers me when other Christians don't live this way.

Just as a side-note, I've realized (especially lately) that there are very few things that bother me and that I am passionate about, but this is one, so I am giving myself permission to be frustrated by it and to share my thoughts with you, remembering what Paul Scanlon says, that 'Your complaint is your call,' which means I have to do something about my frustration. And so I write.

I had a Spanish friend who told me once of a Spanish saying that goes: 'Mas vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer,' which roughly translates to something like 'Better known evil than an unknown good,' or even 'What you know/have that's bad is better than what you could have that's good.' (I'm sure it's vastly more eloquent in Spanish.) At the time he told me about it I thought it was completely ridiculous. Why in the world would someone choose to keep the bad that they have rather than trade it for what has the possibility of being better? But as I've thought about this particular conversation, I realized, we do this all the time.

How often do we settle for less than God's best? How often do we choose to stay where we are, in the boring and fruitless but familiar (pit?) rather than follow His leading into the unknown and potentially beautiful and miraculous?

And why?? Why do we do this?

I think it's because we don't know God's heart.

We don't know that everything He does, He does out of love for us. We don't understand that He is Abba Father, that He is Daddy, and He is overwhelmed by us and totally in love with us. We don't understand that He is passionate about us and desires our good and our prosperity in Him. We don't actually get the fact that He is always with us and He will never leave us, that we don't have to walk this path alone and that He will provide everything we need along the way. We don't have a clue that everything in the universe He not only made but also owns and that He is happy to share it with us if we ask. We don't realize that He is the Giver of good gifts and that He wants to bless us and show us His incredible favour, doing more for us than we could possibly ask for or imagine. We just don't get it.

So, as frustrated as I've been, really, I'm also sorry. I'm sorry for those among us (myself included sometimes, I admit), who don't grasp the concept that Daddy is absolutely committed to our good and completely devoted to walking with us, providing for us, caring for us, loving us, and helping us become more like Jesus every moment of every day until we see Him face to face. And that makes me sorry that we don't do what He says. Because what He says is essentially, 'Come with Me.' This is an invitation to adventure, where our lives here on earth reflect the beauty and the glory and the majesty of who God is, which as a reality, is more fascinating and exhilarating and magnificent than anything we, in ourselves, could ever hope to imagine. That is what Ephesians 3:20 is all about. That is the life that God has for us. And that is the life that we miss out on when we don't 'do what He says.'