We are continuing with our investigation of the gap
between the pinnacle of genuine faith, and the pit
of unbelief.
Chastisement, or when God disciplines, is what God does
to make us “fit for use”. That is the whole purpose of training,
to become useful for God’s Kingdom. The sermon[1] upon which this series of devotions is based, includes an illustration
of God’s purpose to take our brokenness and use it for His glory, and puts into
perspective those difficult times of testing and training we all experience:
He cuts off every branch of mine that
doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they
will produce even more. John 15:2
A week, or so, ago (in 1978)
the muffler fell off my car. It’s that big
Mercury, so you know it’s a long dude, and it’s heavy. I got under the car trying to put that
muffler back on for what seemed like an hour-and-a-half. I was getting weary; I was on my back with arms
in the air lifting that muffler for an hour-and-a-half, but I just could not
get it right. The pipe I tried to use to
get the muffler back together was too long for the space. It just wouldn’t fit.
After trying so many times I
was exhausted. The point here is that I
finally gave-in; I gave-up. I prayed at
that moment, out loud, under the car: Lord, I give
up. I can’t get it done; you gotta do
it. You know me – I don’t have anything
left. I waited a few minutes for the
LORD’s answer, and decided to try again.
I pushed it and the whole thing fell apart. Now, a few years back the old Russell
would’ve gotten angry, looked up and said:
Hey…why…what have YOU got against me? But not this time. I just said, OK…looks like you
have some other plan here. I crawled out from underneath the
car. I was picking up stuff to put in
the trunk and walk home, but as I got to the back of the car, I noticed the
muffler clamp on the back end was still attached. I saw how impossible it would be to put the
muffler back together.
When I waited on the LORD, I
saw the solution to the problem that was there all the time. I backed off, gave it up, listened, and the
LORD showed me the right way. I had
taken the wrong approach…I was doing it my way.
I waited until things came unglued before I prayed and trusted.
That’s the way of
instruction. A lot of times you don’t
see the LORD’s instruction until retrospect…that time when you stop doing
things your way, look back, and it dawns
on you, oh yeah!
Imagine your life as a sweater
being knitted. God’s the knitter, and
you decide to take the needles. You make
a mistake (don’t we always) but God’s not going to continue where you left off;
He’s going to take out the error. That’s
called purging.
For You Today
The sweater or muffler in your life may be
different than mine, but the principle holds…we can continue struggling with
doing it our way…or we can learn early in the process to give-in, and give-up,
to God’s teaching.
Tomorrow we’ll have the unveiling of God’s
glory in this whole process.
There are about 2,000 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper on
today’s topic, explore some of these:
Why Does Bad Stuff Happen to
Good People? and
Seeing and Following the Light -
Part 1
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[1] From a sermon, Chastisement, June 7, 1978, Russell Brownworth
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