1 Corinthians 4: 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.
We like to use this scripture when we talk about people. Don’t judge them until the appointed time, wait until the Lord comes. However the scripture reads judge nothing.. It is actually two words in Greek the first meaning any person or object, the second meaning no, or none…..”tis me” is the phrase. Nothing. That includes a lot more than just people. It got me to thinking, you know I try pretty hard not to be judgmental. I often think of Paul, who in the beginning was judge by Christians as the devil himself. I am sure those people were quite surprised to see his transformation. Sure you can say there was a change, or he became a different man, however had he not been judged in the first place, there would be no need to recant that initial statement……..but what about everything else? When I look at my life I see that I tend to be very judgmental about a lot of other things, especially the circumstances I find myself in. I find that I feel the need to force a change, to “make it right” , or to “fix” the problem. However often it turns out that the problem in the situation is me. Had I let it play out, had I just waited on the Lord to move, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache, and misery. You see I had judged the problem, and judged it harshly. I found blame with everything about the problem, but somehow seem to have left myself out of the equation. I will tell you the truth, this is what Paul was talking about, we are quick as a people to rush to judgment, not just about people, but about problems in our life. Evidently it is a problem that has been around for a couple thousand years. I have had to come to grips with the harsh reality that guess what………I do not know everything, and I do not know exactly how this chapter is going to play out…..worse than that, I have had to learn (and I am still working on it) that …..and this one is painful……I have to wait….I have to wait for the Lord to move. I have to wait to see the end before I can go back and evaluate how best to avoid the problem again. All I can do is pray to, and hope in the Lord…..and as clearly as that, there is the answer, you see, we must learn to trust completely in the Lord.
If we are trusting in the Lord, there is no need to judge all of the things around us. If we spend our time looking to the Lord, if we focus on Him, and strive to have faith in His plan, then we have made room in our lives for Him to work, not just work around us, but in us as well. Oh I know you are thinking, Brian, you are being unrealistic, we have to DO SOMETHING…..yes, you would be right, we have to do the right thing, for that is all that any of us can do. Pray, and do the right thing. It is quite harder than it sounds. You see it is far easier to take a house down with a wrecking ball. A couple of swings and the house is down. The debris field is now twice the size of the house, but the house is down. Think about how hard it would be to take that house apart piece by piece, so that you can reuse the pieces to build something else. That is doing the right thing. Removing each piece of the problem, so that all involved can be used again. You know what? We are not that good. Have you ever tried to remove a piece of sheetrock and reuse it? How about pulling all of the nails out of a board so that it is good as new……it does not take long before you are setting the framing hammer down and looking for the sledge. I do not know about you, but I have a HUGE patience problem. However I know who does have patience, He has been waiting on us for a long long time. I know who can remove each nail, and fill every hole. So I have found it is best to let Him take care of the problem, I will just worry about trying to do the right thing. Pray for my enemy, return kindness instead of hurt, give love, even when everything inside me shouts to retaliate with pain. When I focus on that, I find that God shows up in a big way. He will work to take care of the issue. Oh I can promise, it is not always the outcome I want, or understand, but I can look around and see that we are all still whole, the house has been disassembled, and all the supplies are neatly stacked and ready to be reused; God has done it once again! He has taken the impossible, and made it possible. The Lord will always bring the light, He will always show the way, then expose the true solution, and if we do it right, if we will just have faith and trust in Him, He will shower us with praise, blessings, and peace…..so hold the judgment, and wait on the Lord, it will be the best choice you ever make.
God Bless,
Brian Thetford
<((((><
www.psalm22.net
www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment