Blessings or Cursings 2

What man looks on as important is not so with God. If that's the case, wouldn't it stand to reason that the things we consider blessings could very well be cursings? Neither His ways nor His thoughts are like ours. Could it not be that we are condemning our souls to leanness when we want, and want and want and then we receive but aren't truly satisfied? And then we 'want' some more. 

This doesn't seem right. Who doesn't want health, comfort, our choice of foods, fun times, good relationships with family and friends, the ability to pursue our own interests, when, where and how we want to pursue them and whatever else our souls can desire. I'm not talking about obviously sinful behaviors or desires. I am talking about those things that all humanity craves, from the richest to the poorest, the youngest to the oldest. Is the Father against these things?

How do we reconcile this with pursing His Kingdom first? Are we content with the fact that our lives our no longer our own but that we are to live to service of Another? If that means that our lives don't fall in line with that majority 'craving' that I spoke about, then do we receive it or feel we are being short changed?  Do we try to fanagle our lives so that we can still get our way yet say we are pursuing the Kingdom? 

I want my constant prayer to be "if this be Your Will, Lord", "if this be Your Will, Lord", "if this be Your Will, Lord"...

And then having the ear to hear,' Yes daughter', or 'No daughter'.

I don't want to desire anything more or anything different than what the Father's Will is.

Money comes and goes; our health is often dependent on our OWN discipline or lack thereof; comfort is subjective and we can learn to be flexible in circumstances that less motivated individuals would find unbearable; fun time is subjective and can be a robber of  God's purposes in our lives; good relationships often mean, having other people around us to entertain us, agree with us, listen to us complain, or meet our needs - self centeredness prevents us from really developing relationships that function as iron sharpening iron; pursing our own interests can be another robber of God's purposes in our lives - if we are living in the Sabbath,and  we 'turn away our foot and from doing our pleasure on His Holy day" Isa. 58:13. We are called to follow the example of Christ and only do what we see the Father doing, and saying what we hear the Father is saying. 

I believe that we as humans, myself included, don't realize how much of the world, flesh and inspiration from the evil one is affecting how we live this life.

And I don't want that anymore.

Help me Lord Jesus.

Blessings or Curses

We have received of the Lord, particularly hear in the West and specifically here in America, an abundance of material blessings. Even what we consider the poorest of us here are given the ability through a multitude of charitable outreach services, places to lay our head, clothes to wear, food and drink, transportation and places to clean our clothes and ourselves. But these minimum necessities are far exceeded by a good portion of our population with the continued  desire to go even farther in the accumulation of goods, services and entertainments.  The Lord has told us in Matthew that we can not serve God and mammon. Our goal of the Kingdom has to be our priority over pursuing the American Dream. The organized expression of the church often encourages this material pursuit, saying that God desires us to be blessed. But being the slaves to the flesh that we are, we become like the Children of Israel; we take the gold the Father has allowed the world to bestow upon us and we make Him over in OUR image - a God that will allow us to indulge our flesh and then 'rise up to play'

And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Exodus 32:6 KJV

There is a comparison between how the flesh minded Children of Israel handled their possessions and how the Father desired to use them:

 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. 3And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, 4And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, 5And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood, 6Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, 7Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. 8And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. 9According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. Exodus 25:1-9 KJV

I highlghted in red an important part - what they had received from Egypt/the world was to be offered to the Father to build an habitation.

Cain Coming to Terms

 "They went astray in their hearts because they didn't know the ways of the Lord. They didn't come to His terms. As a result they were prevented from entering into His rest.

"THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, 'THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS'; AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, 'THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.'" (Hebrews 3:10-11 NASB)

We do the same thing. We see and experience the power of God. We walk in His provision and protection. And yet our hearts maintain our own ways instead of changing and conforming to His ways. We want to receive all of the benefits of the Lord on our own terms. If we think that the Lord will allow this as we mature then we are sadly mistaken."

This was a quote from Art Nelson's monthly email newsletter titled "Coming to Terms". This seems to correspond to my thoughts about being Cain and how Cain (me) wanted to come to God in the way Cain himself wanted to come regardless of God's requirements. I need to write 100 times on a chalkboard "Jehova is Lord, Jehova is Lord, Jehova is Lord..." 

My thinking has been so corrupted by the flesh and this world's system that I feel MY ways are so good and right and just that the Father should just co-sign on everything I do, say and want. But, as bro. Art says, 'we (I) are sadly mistaken".

When I was thinking on the fact of God being God and His ways not being my ways, I thought about how there is nothing I can say, no credible debate I can present to convince Him my way is the way things should be), all I can do is worship Him. Worship the One who does what He does according to His own good pleasure. I am too small minded, immature, seeing nothing but veil to offer any valid rebuttal to anything that occurs to me or anyone else. I don't know if me or another person is reaping something from years previous, if the person or me was allowed to have a request that the Father didn't want them to have and now leaness has entered the soul, if a circumstance is the result of our decaying,cursed world, if the evil one is being allowed to sift me/someone else - or WHAT the problem is. Well, this isn't completely true - we can ask for wisdom and understanding and often the Father will lead us to the wellspring from which the circumstance was born. Many times though, it still passes our comprehension and even though well meaning Job-ian friends may try to give an answer, we still are left in the dark as to what in the world is going on.

"Father, help me to receive You and Your ways without complaint, without doubt. Let me truly enter your rest as I learn of Your ways and stop going astray in my heart. I love you and thank you. Please forgive me and continue to deal with me as You see fit. Amen"