Cell phones, Palm Pilots, Providence, and a DORK
Yesterday, my room mate "misplaced" his palm pilot/cell phone/pc/address book that basically does everything but drive his car for him. It has so much important information on it that the financial cost of losing it was drown out. Needless to say, he was pretty stressed (as any owner of such a James Bond-like device would surely be).
Anyway, we searched the apartment high and low. We called the various relevant offices at the seminary to no avail. He personally went and back-tracked his entire day. Nothing. He arrived back at the apartment in a mild state of confusion.
We decided to pray. Jonathan prayed first. Immediately after he prayed his last words, my cell phone began to ring. It was the man at the information desk at the seminary saying that some random guy had just turned in a cell phone/palm pilot. The call literally took place right before I began to pray! We asked the guy at the desk about the timing, and we determined that the random guy turned the cell phone in as Jonathan began to pray. Praise the King!
With that being said, I am reminded of another of my favorite quotes:
"The providence of God is the Christian's diary." (Thomas Watson)
We wait in expectation for the future providence of God, but how often do we take the time to look at the providence of God in hindsite?
Personally, I have seen God do so many miraculous things in and around my life; things beyond all I could have ever asked or imagined. Yet, when I enter into "unknown territory" with my hands tied behind my back, out of control, I so easily doubt. I get "flustered" and my first inclination is to fight. People hurt and deceive; God is forever faithful. "No good thing does he withold from those whose walk is blameless." He will not give me a stone when I ask for bread.
Another of my favorite verses is Psalm 116:7
"Return, O my soul, to your rest. For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you."
Has God ever disappointed us? We get hurt so often in life, but looking back on it all, can we not see the loving hand of God? It is so easy to look at the things we don't have, and try to take personal responsibility to fight for those things. Instead (PREACHING TO MYSELF HERE), we need to relax and trust God to do the miraclous just as He has always been faithful to do, if we would just dare to ask believing.
The past few months, God has been enriching my view of this in unparalleled ways. And He always seems to use imperfect human beings to do it. What would we do without people to keep us humble? People are truly gifted at stripping away our egos to where we are able to see ourselves as the dorks we all truly are. If there is one area that I have become a professional in, it would have to be DORKHOOD! :)
We'll save my thinking on this for another post...
posted by Russ at 8/17/2005 09:51:00 AM
3 Comments:
Um, good question. Deserves a thoughtful answer. You asked, "Has God ever really disappointed us?"
Honestly, now, many people would have to say, "Yes! Yes, He has!"
However, disappointment is not always a bad thing. If we are expecting, seeking, even praying for what will not ultimately satisfy us or glorify Him, then the first and best thing for us is certainly that we be disappointed, and that from the loving hand of our Sovereign God.
Phil Keaggy put to music many years ago an anonymous poem, the first verse of which says,
Disappointment -- His appointment:
Change one letter and you see
That the thwarting of my purpose
Is God's better choice for me.
At issue here, of course, is the occupancy of the throne. In order to pray with all candor, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . . ," it is first necessary to pray, "My kingdom go, and my will be undone . . ." The dis-appointment (i.e., removing oneself, un-appointing oneself from the throne) of such a prayer is real, even palpable, and perhaps sometimes painful. And then, again, pain is not always bad either -- it's a great motivator for change!
As C. S. Lewis said so eloquently (he who was not even a 4-point Calvinist), "in the end there are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'thy will be done'." Those accustomed to walking only through the T.U.L.I.P.'s may struggle to wrap their theologies around such a statement, but it certainly clarifies the fact that the temporary disappointment brought on by the dethronement of one's own ego is the only sure preventive for the ultimate disappointment of being left to one's own resources -- and therfore, in one's own sins! -- for eternity.
"For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17, HCSB).
Laura's dad,
Great post! Obviously, we are disappointed. We live in a fallen world. God obviously allows it and is sovereign over it. Suffering (in various forms) produces hope in the end (Romans 5). The point is that God is never disappointing. Does He allow us to experience disappointment in this fallen world? Of course.
God, in all He is, is NEVER disappointing. We were made for Him. That is my point. C.S. Lewis also says that our problem is that we settle for too LITTLE pleasure in this world. We settle for mud puddles when, in Christ, we have an infinite ocean of joy. Hardly a disappointment.
Glad you brought up Lewis; love him! "If I find in myself a longing that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most logical explanation is that I was made for another world." Worshipping anything or anyone outside of our Creator is idolatry, and will only yield disappointment.
I loved your post. God allows us to be ultimately disappointed in ALL THINGS outside of Himself. That is my point. I am glad that you expounded on my post and cleared up some of my failures in articulation.
I deal with the "Thy will" vs. "thy will" every day of my life. Sometimes in greater degrees than others. I am just forever grateful and humbled that it was His will to show Russ Kreuter mercy. And that He will bring to completion the work He began in me.
It's a very personal thing for me these days. Dis-appointment -- that temporary frustration with things as they are or even with things as we, in our infantile petulance, insisted they be -- is good insofar as it weans us from feeling at home in this world. The wayside inns along the road to heaven, cozy as they may occasionally be, will always -- must always! -- disappoint us; and rightly so, for we were designed for a brief sojourn in this world, but an eternal life in that better, more permanent land where God has sealed our citizenship by His grace.
Oh, may every desire for this world leave us disappointed, so our longings may be devoted to Him Who alone will not ultimately disappoint us, but rather has firmly and finally appointed us a home with Him!
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