Don’t Fight Him!

 

I remember a several-day episode of major drama in the ballroom where we practice our dance ministry. Ladies would run out of the restroom screaming, and even gentlemen would gasp and lose their composure while leading a dance move. The source of all this commotion was a small lizard who had apparently sneaked in under the door and refused to leave, appearing unexpectedly at the most inopportune times.

Such lizards are common in Florida, where the sunlight, heat, humidity, vegetation and insects offer them an ideal environment. They blend well into their outdoor surroundings, where their intricately patterned colorations and interesting behaviors usually cause us to admire them as an example of God’s perfect and creative design (Genesis 1:24-25). But within the ballroom, this tiny intruder took on monstrous proportions and was described as “that humongous, nasty creature!”

My husband Richard opened the door and tried to show him the way, getting behind him and shooing him toward the threshold. But the little rascal obstinately stood his ground in the corner, then fled even further into the ballroom. Richard extended his hand to gently scoop him up and out the door, but he scurried away.

Finally Richard dropped an empty wastebasket upside down over the culprit so that he would be safely contained inside. His plan was to slide the wastebasket to the door, then to safely release the lizard outdoors where he could find the sunlight, water, and food he so desperately needed. But that rebellious lizard flung himself against the walls of the basket and even tried to escape through the bottom. In the resulting struggle, a tiny piece of his tail broke off, and when Richard finally brought him into the sunlight, the lizard seemed dazed and exhausted by his journey, resting peacefully in his hand for a moment before leaping to freedom.

“It would have been a lot easier on him if he hadn’t fought me the whole way,” Richard said.

It made me wonder how many times God says the same thing about us. Like Lot (Genesis 13:12-13;19) and Samson (Judges 14-16), we sometimes leave the provision of His presence to stray into places and situations where we don’t belong. Outside His will, we no longer fit harmoniously into the order He has designed for us as members of His body (Romans 12: 4-5; 1 Corinthians 12). Instead, we disrupt the peace and fellowship of others. We cut ourselves off from His life-giving love, safety, and blessings (Philippians 4:19), and strike out on our own as if we could supply our own needs once separated from His nourishing care (John 15:5).

But thankfully, God loves us too much to leave us in our desperate predicament (Isaiah 54:7-10; Luke 15:4-6). When we were His enemies, rebelling against His authority and even against acknowledging His existence, He pursued us to get our attention (Romans 5:8-10; James 4:4) and to show us His love (1 John 4:19).

Fighting God is pointless, for one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10). How much better to submit to His will now and live out His perfect plan for our life, than to realize too late the horrible mistake of rejecting Christ -- an error resulting in eternal damnation.

Saul of Tarsus was arguably the most zealous enemy of Christ, for he persecuted, imprisoned and even killed Christians (Acts 7: 57-Acts 8:1-3). Yet Christ appeared to Him on the road to Damascus, and Saul became Paul, entrusted by Christ with the mission of spreading the Gospel to the Gentiles and writing most of the New Testament (Acts 9:1-2).

Once we trust Christ as Savior and place our faith in His death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), He will not let us stray far from His will without intervening to call us back to Himself. Like the father of the Prodigal Son, He will be waiting for our return with His arms outstretched in love (Luke 15:20).

The good life the lizard was seeking lay just outside the ballroom door, yet in his ignorance and confusion he ran further away from it, fighting Richard’s rescue attempts with every fiber of his being. When the lizard strayed from his outdoor home into the ballroom, he was so far out of his element that he was viewed as a nuisance and a menace, rather than as one of God’s awesome creatures playing his part in the harmony of nature. When we are out of God’s will, we cannot glorify Him because others see our sin nature, and not His light shining through us (Romans 8:5-9).

Why don’t we listen to God when He speaks to us in a still, small, voice (1 Kings 19:12) and just obey Him, stepping back on the path lit by His Word? (Psalm 119:105). Why do we run further away from His fellowship, and that of other believers, into the darkness of sin? (2 Corinthians 6:14-18) Why do we wait for Him to use drastic measures to get our attention (Hebrews 12:3-11), as He did with Jonah? (Jonah 1-4)

How much better to respond to God's quiet whisper than to wait for Him to smack us on the head with a 2 X 4! When He resorts to such extreme methods, we usually have only ourselves to blame.

I felt sorry for the lizard as my husband slid him to safety in the wastebasket, because he couldn’t see where he was or where he was going and had no idea of his destination or fate. God made us in His own image (Genesis 1:27) with the ability to love, trust, and obey Him, yet sometimes we lack faith (Hebrews 11:6). We panic and fight back like the lizard, which only makes our situation worse.

When we can’t see Him at work and can’t hear His voice, we may think that He has abandoned us or that He no longer cares enough to see us safely home. Yet He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). 

Once we are His children and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:35), and nothing can pluck us out of the double grip of Jesus and the Father (John 10:28). We cannot go where His love cannot rescue us (Psalm 139:1-12), and if we take even the smallest step on the journey home to Him, He will run to us with open arms (Luke 15:20).

Even if we can’t understand how He will see us through our distress, we should trust in His love and in His ability to bring about His perfect will for our lives (Romans 8:28). Don’t fight Him – trust Him!

Psalm 19:13: Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins.

“It is as if [David] said, ‘Keep me back, or I shall rush headlong over the precipice of sin.’ Our evil nature, like an ill-tempered horse, is apt to run away. May the grace of God put the bridle upon it, and hold it in, that it rush not into mischief. What might not the best of us do if it were not for the checks which the Lord sets upon us both in providence and in grace!
C. H. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, March 16

© 2012 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives, edited and expanded

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Whether in war, sports, or any other endeavor, we always love the happy ending sometimes known as “snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.” We root for the underdog and are thrilled when he or she prevails against all odds, often at the very last possible moment, triumphing against the oppressor or against the ringer who was a shoe-in to win.

In Scripture, examples are David as a youth felling the giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17), Gideon defeating the mighty Midianite armies with 300 men (Judges 7); and the repentant thief on the cross. Although the thief was no doubt a “loser” and a criminal, justly condemned, by his own admission, to an agonizing death, he had a totally unexpected blissful ending. Rather than spending eternity in hell to suffer everlasting punishment for his sins, he recognized Jesus as his Lord. Because of his faith and God’s grace, Jesus promised him that he would be with Him in Paradise that very day (Luke 23:40-43).

This story in and of itself proves that we are saved not by our own merit or works, which are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) in God’s sight, but only by God’s grace through our faith. The thief had no time to do any good works or even to be baptized, yet Christ pardoned him immediately and accepted him into His Kingdom. Numerous other passages support salvation by grace, not works (2 Timothy 1:9; Acts 15:11; Ephesians 2:5-9).

No doubt the crowd that day could not appreciate the thief’s story, much less its significance. Crosses were tall structures erected high on the hillside, where they would serve as a severe warning to all who might be tempted to break the law. So when the unrepentant thief mocked Jesus and the other thief acknowledged Him as Lord, the onlookers may not have heard their faint cries, or their feeble, dying gasps. If they did, they probably dismissed the thief’s prayer and Christ’s promise as gibberish from oxygen-deprived brains.

Rather, the crowd probably thought that Barabbas was the one who had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Also a hardened criminal and even a murderer, he escaped a gruesome death when the crowd’s hatred for Jesus demanded that Pilate release Barabbas instead, as it was the custom at Passover for one on Death Row to be pardoned (Mark 15:7-15; Luke 23:17-25).

But was that truly a victory for Barabbas? Did he seize on this opportunity to turn over a new leaf, repent of his sin, trust God, live a dedicated life of service and helping others, and find abundant and eternal life? (John 3:16; 10:10) One would hope so, for to whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48). But there is no indication in the Bible that his reprieve accomplished anything other than an opportunity for continued sin against God and harm to others.

So I believe Barabbas did not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Given this once-in-a-lifetime, totally unexpected and undeserved chance to start over, this time on the right path, I think he completely blew it, no doubt ending up in the hell he deserved. God’s mercies are new every morning, yet we do not always use this clean slate to ask Him to renew a right spirit within us and to transform our minds (Psalm 51:10; Ephesians 4:23; Romans 12:2).

Sadly, that is the result of our fallen sin nature (Romans 3:23), which is why snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is so much more common than the opposite. We see this all the time when lottery winners ruin their lives rather than using their newfound wealth to transform not only their own situation for the good, but to provide amazing benefit for others in need. Scripture tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10), and history proves over and over that absolute power corrupts absolutely. When we’re on top, there seems to be no place to go but down.

We see this even with great heroes of the faith and with those God blessed with extraordinary gifts and talents. Samson, raised to be a Nazarite priest set apart for God’s service, had legendary strength enabling him to tear apart an attacking lion with his bare hands, and to slay a thousand enemies with the jawbone of an ass. Yet his life was a downward spiral, breaking Mosaic law by eating honey from the unclean carcass of the lion, taking lovers of pagan nations, destroying property, stirring up strife, and ultimately killing himself as he pulled down the pillars of the palace on himself and his captors (Judges 13-16).  

Solomon was born to King David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), and was gifted by God with the greatest human wisdom ever known and with wealth, power, and innumerable other blessings (1 Kings 4). He started out with countless advantages, yet at the end of his life he left God’s perfect will and followed after strange gods. To serve the idol of political power (and perhaps the idol of lust as well) he married many pagan wives. To keep the peace, he built altars and burnt incense to their false gods, and he may even have sacrificed his own children to Molech, the fire god. God punished him for his idolatry not only through the loss of fellowship with Him, but by taking away his kingdom (1 Kings 11:1-12)

As the saying goes, God is not so much interested in our location as in our direction. No depth of depravity is too low for His grace to reach (Psalm 139:8), and no pinnacle of our own achievement is so lofty that we do not need His grace even to take our very next breath (2 Samuel 1:19,25; John 15:5). So in God’s eyes, it is far better to be the thief on the cross who turned away from his sin and to Christ, than to be a privileged king who drifted away from God to false idols.

With Solomon, it appears to have been a relatively gradual wandering off from God’s plan, but what really shocks me is Elijah. After experiencing a superlative spiritual victory, calling upon God and witnessing His dramatic power in bringing fire down from Heaven to shame Baal and his false prophets (1 Kings 18), Elijah caves overnight. When the wicked queen Jezebel threatens to kill him, he seemingly forgets God’s great power and deliverance and runs away like a bullied schoolgirl, hiding under a juniper tree and begging God to end his life (1 Kings 19).

But thank God, He did not leave Elijah alone to wither away, or grant his prayer to end his life. He cared for him by sending the angel of the Lord to minister to him, and He spoke to Elijah with a still, small voice, preparing him for continued victories to come. Praise God that He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Once we are born again (John 3:5-21) as His children, snatching the victory of eternal life from the jaws of everlasting death in hell, we can trust in His faithfulness to deliver us.

Even Jesus experienced great trials after mountaintop experiences – forty days of fasting and temptation by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11) after His baptism and proclamation by God Himself (Matthew 3:16-17); the triumphal entry followed by false trial and crucifixion; death and burial followed by resurrection. Yet He realized that without the cross, we would have no crowns. He knew that these trials did not represent defeat, but the necessary seeds of victory itself.

Praise God that Jesus snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, not only for Himself, but for all who place their faith in His death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way (John 14:6) to eternal life! Because of His finished work on the cross, sin and death have no victory, and the grave has no sting!  (1 Corinthians 15:54-55)

© 2014 Laurie Collett