Good morning,
One of the men that I was talking to a couple of week ago said something that really got my attention. He comes from a background of a troubled home and a controlling father. He grew up feeling that who he was and what he did was never good enough to satisfy his father. His brothers were treated the same way and they used their father’s approach in trying to control him as well. He grew up determined to prove that he was a good person and carried the load of his need to prove his worth well into the middle years of his life. He trusted the Lord as his Savior while he was young and did well in his college years, but he has always lived his life with the fear that he could never measure up. The Lord arranged a combination of a crisis in his work life and his married life to bring him to the point of despair. Then God began the process of giving him a new filter to help him see himself through God’s eyes more and more, and see himself less and less through the filter of his past and present relationships.
While we were discussing this wonderful life change, he gave me a piece of his God given filter that gave me a helpful way of evaluating God’s work in my life as well. The Bible is clear that God has planned every day of our lives even before we were born. (Psalm 139:16) Since this is true, my friend had begun to look at his journey through life as part of God’s Class Room, rather than seeing himself as living in an enemy controlled Court Room. Now he is seeing his background more and more as training for ministry, the Class Room, as he goes through life and is learning to evaluate angry talk and personal rejection as part of living in an enemy designed Court Room.
The most powerful part of this process for all of us is learning to identify and deal with is all the Court Room stuff that is still stored in our sinful human hearts. Have you ever said to yourself, “Why did I say that?” Jesus pointed out that, For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.(Matthew 12:34) David pointed out in Psalm 139:4 that what we say can be an important part of our identifying and dealing, with God’s help, the cleaning up process of our hearts. God arranges circumstances for us to react to. When we respond to the circumstances with words, those words will tell us what God already knows is in our hearts. Since God is never our accuser, our Savior wants to use those words to lead us to freedom and blessing. Will those words cause trouble? Probably! Where is God in this process? You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Painful lessons can lead to wonderful repentance and freedom. Once we understand what God is up to we will be able to say with David, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. Please Lord, help us to better understand the difference between the Class Room and the Court Room.
Psalms 139:4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. 5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand.
Roy Wisner
