I'm sure I'm not the only person who has at some point wished I could "make" someone do such-and-so. I'm able to look at their situation and am absolutely convinced that I know the best course of action for them. This doesn't always result in harmony, to say the least. I've tried (often unsuccessfully) to avoid telling others what to do. And over time - at least in my more rational moments - I've recognized that it's enough of a job controlling my own behavior.
I'm not all-knowing, and I'm not all-powerful, but God is. And God doesn't force his children to respond to his call or to obey his will. He gives us freedom to choose. Though he has the power to compel us, he loves and respects us enough to allow us to form our own opinions and to decide on our own course of action. Louis Comte puts it this way:
He has never constrained anyone to serve him and he will never do so. Yet, he will certainly prick and try to open our consciences, wandering around in our hearts, begging us to convert and give oneself completely to him, but never will he take us by force. He does not want that!He doesn't lay on a guilt trip; he tries to open our consciences. He doesn't run us over with a cosmic Mack truck; he wanders around in our hearts. He doesn't lecture and scold; he begs us to convert.
He doesn't use pyrotechnics to dazzle us, but comes to us as a baby born in a stable.
I know what you mean. I have found that when I pray for someone, sometimes God gives me an opportunity to lift up His name in conversation. But when I try to force God into the conversation, it doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteI love when the Holy Spirit speaks the same things to His people.
ReplyDeleteHis ways are higher than our ways. His Word says if you seek Him you will find Him. And...we do. His Word tells us that we are not to lean on our own understanding. So just be. His Word says He will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory...and He has and He does. He has told us that by His stripes we were healed and we were...just believe in faith. He sees all things finished, because He is the Alpha and the Omega...the Beginning and the End. I like to imagine He is the center of the wheel and we are spokes...and I like to imagine that these spokes are like bungee cords and we stretch and do things in our own ways because He gives us Grace to do so and He has infinite Mercy on us all. This week these thoughts were good thoughts to me and I was thinking about this bungee line and how when things are far away we need binoculars to see them..and we really cannot determine exactly what we are seeing sometimes...I think I see a dog in the pasture and after I get the binoculars I realize it is a large tom cat Lol and in the same way...when we get very far away from God we cannot see things clearly... they are out of focus and we begin to make decisions from a distorted perception. We are to have our being in Him. If I am very far away from Him I cannot lean back and melt in Him! LOL and I love to lean and melt in Him. So...I am resting my bungee line and allowing it to pull me back in closer and closer and closer and closer...Peace to you.