Yet To Be Titled

CHAPTER 8 - ONE SHINING MOMENT

Leo Tolstoy, convinced that God would help him fly, dove headfirst out of a third-floor window and experienced his first major crisis of disappointment with God. Years later He could laugh at his childish test of faith.

Do we pray as though God was a genie in a bottle, granting us wishes we want. If so how many do we get? How many of us in an hour of desperation or disappointment instinctively promise God anything if only..... God PLEASE get me out of this. God if you could get me out of this .... if things calm down.... if I get well.... then I will follow you God. Richard and many of us believe that anyone with a brain and common sense would gladly follow God like a faithful puppy if only God acted fairly, spoke clearly, and made Himself obvious.

One need only look at the Israelites to dispel that belief. The rebuttal argument from us would be that their faith faltered because of the harshness of the living conditions. Who wouldn't lose heart under those circumstances and so we could use the same argument. Who wouldn't lose faith when you need to care for a family and your job is taken from you. I see a problem with this last argument as being based on perspective and perspective is subject to individual interpretation. Kind of like one man's trash is another mans dream.

Then it all changed. Psalm 78 says "Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a man wakes from a stupor of wine." God found David a man after His own heart. Yet David broke every law on the books except for one: he loved God with all his heart, all his mind and all his soul. This means that God does not just respond to obedience or well behaved people. So it's not because I'm not perfect that God does not seemingly answer all my prayers or seems hidden, silent and unobvious. And while God did open up to David it was not without hardships and trials and battles. A wanted and hunted man by Saul had it's challenges. Facing the bear and the lion and Goliath had it's challenges as well. How about David being anointed by Samuel as King at a very young age and in the next moment he's back tending sheep. Look how many years before that came to be a reality?

In my own research outside of Philip's book I can not find one man of God who eventually received the promises of God who didn't first go through some stuff. Moses, Abraham, Joseph, Job, David, Noah, and the list goes on and I'm sure we each would differentiate between each of them as to what the degree of hardship was. Which one of their lives would I like to live? Who's life do I see today that I would be willing to trade for? Can I pick like from a buffet? Maybe then I could come up with a platter that would satisfy my hunger? What is it that I'm being served that I do not like? Is it the carrots, the string beans or the fish? Why can't I just run through the drive-up at heavens gates and order up what I want? No vegetables but a double portion of meat and potatoes will do just fine... so I often think. Then I get the food only to find that the potatoes are cold or worse, they are old and so over cooked that they are brown. Oh ya worse than that would be that they aren't real, they are instant. And the meat is over cooked or worse yet under cooked. And or tough or fatty.

Seems like I am always making judgements? Truth is maybe my whole problem is that I'm just tired of making choices about so many things in my life. Have I made life too complicated or is life complicated? I sure hope that somewhere in the next 24 chapters I find some clarity, some resolution. I say that with great hesitancy and a little fear that I am going to find that I already know what I am after. I already have the answers. I already have all the clarity I need. That word "faith" keeps ringing in my mind and is leaving me unsettled.

I came up with some to consider as a life I may want to trade for. I'm not saying for sure but just maybe Solomon's life would bring me satisfaction. I'll let you know for sure on Monday after I consider it this weekend.