Yesterday I was working in our yard. We have one of those electric weed eaters that I use to trim the grass around the house and other places I can’t get with the lawnmower. Of course, using an electric weed eater means dragging the electric cord around behind you. I always try to make sure it’s straightened out, and arranged in such a way that it will feed out behind me without trouble. Sometimes when I have to go around a corner or other obstacle, the cord can get tangled and twisted. I have to tug at it, or maybe give it sort of a bullwhip motion to pull it free. Occasionally I have to even put down the weed eater and walk back along the length of the cord and work out a tangle, or free it from an obstacle.
As I was untangling the cord for about the fifty-third time, I started thinking about how much I must seem that way to God.
Hebrews 12
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
When we make Jesus Lord of our life, we become children of God, adopted into His eternal kingdom. And just as the Book of Hebrews tells us, because we are loved, we are often disciplined.
You see, to put it in the weed eater analogy, when we are “plugged into” God’s Kingdom, He has a purpose for us. (Kind of like I had a purpose with my weed eater. My purpose was to…. eat weeds. :)) Sometimes as God works in us to accomplish His purpose, we get tangled up, caught up, snared up in things outside of His purpose. He has to get us untangled, because His work is important. And because He loves us, He has a purpose for us. And because we have a purpose, sometimes, as his children, we have to be disciplined to get us back on track.
When I got the full cooperation of my electric cord, I was rewarded with a nice looking yard. When we follow God’s calling, resisting the snares and temptations along the way, it “produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
But there were a few times that my cord was following along just fine, but to get where I needed to go, I had to drag it through some mud, or sticks, or an ant bed or three. It’s not that I didn’t care about the cord, but my purposes required the cord to follow me through that stuff. And it’s often that way with God’s purposes. We may not understand why we go through some of the things we do. We may even think we are being punished.
But we must always remember that as believers in Jesus, having asked Him to forgive our sins and be Master of our life, that we are the beloved children of God. What He does in our lives is because He loves us so dearly. We must never listen to the lies that Satan will tell us otherwise.
Dear friends, if you are a brother or sister in Christ, know that God loves you, and sometimes, when He has to give us a yank on our cord, it is because we are loved, and have gotten distracted from His good purpose for our lives. (Read Jeremiah 29:11!) And sometimes, in following Him, we have to go through rough spots simply because that is what the work requires.
And if you have not asked Jesus to be Lord and Savior of your life, friends, I urge you to not wait another minute to do so. The world will tell you that there are many paths to Heaven, or that no one really goes to the eternal separation from God in Hell. Yet Jesus spoke very clearly on this- in John 14:6 Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And how do we do that? “9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10)
Christian brothers and sisters, I pray that you will seek God’s purposes in your life, and always be on alert for the snares of this life, and that God will strengthen you as you go through the trials that we will face.
And for my friends who do not know Jesus as Lord, please take a few moments to read this information, and ask God to open your eyes to the need for salvation from your sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me (use the “Contact” link on this page), or contact a pastor in a Bible-based Christian church and share with him your questions, or your decision for Christ. In any event, I’d love to hear from you!
God bless you, dear friends.