Wayfaring Stranger

Object lessons that hit you upside the head!

I've been struggling over the past few weeks with what I called pride issues a week ago. Then sometime during the week following that declaration, in my study time I came across an article written by Selwyn Hughes that talked about how we suffer from the sin of demandingness. That was object lesson number one. I spent the rest of the week reeling from this realization that yes indeed I am demanding and I don't like that one bit. So I shared this discovery with one of my trusted elders and we talked about that for a bit. I told him I am trying hard to change that about myself. He immediately turned toward me and said he had a teachable moment for me. I should have ducked. He asked me to "try" to pick up a pen on the table. Okay. Well no matter how I picked that pen up, it was the wrong way. I was about to say there is no way I can pick this up when he stopped me and told me that if I keep trying to do something, it will never happen. That's what happens when we "try" to go on a diet. You either do or you don't. Then he put his hand on the table just a little space away from the pen and said when we go as far as we can, that's when God puts his hand over ours and moves us the rest of the way. That is how in our weakness, he makes us strong. He put his other hand down on the hand on the table and moved it to pick up the pen. Object lesson number two.

Now I don't know about anybody else but when I get hit hard twice in the same week with object lessons, I decide it's something I am definitely supposed to be paying attention to. I also start thinking how I really would like to start making these amazing discoveries without having to be hit with a brick! But then again, I also know I would probably miss them entirely if there wasn't some pain involved. That seems to be the way I operate. I'm just very glad that God cares enough to know me and the ways I learn important lessons.

posted by Dana @ 4:46 PM