The Will of God is to Give thanks in Every thing

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1Th 5:18 

Are we ungrateful? Probably we don’t know. ‘Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults’ cried the psalmist. And probably once in a while we would all benefit immensely from such a prayer. A young rich ruler went to Jesus one day desiring to know what he should do to earn eternal life. He had, according to his testimony, been perfect since childhood. But Jesus told him the truth. And the truth made the rich young ruler very sad. He had a secret fault he hardly knew anything about. And it was that which turned his day into a night suddenly. But truth shouldn’t leave us sad. It should rather leave us enlightened, changed and happy. For it is only then that we can be said to be truly free.

The young rich ruler had a ‘secret fault’ he didn’t know he possessed. And so we too may be pretty ungrateful in our everyday life but we don’t even know it. So what do you see in that brief second of revelation which God sends to us once in a while? And how does it leave you feeling, light or heavy? It came to Peter once. But it made him cry instead, ‘Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’ The prodigal had been born greedy and ungrateful (like all of us) but he didn’t know it. But thank God the prodigal came to himself, and he chose the way of salvation and not sorrow. He went back to his father and this time he didn’t even want to be called his son – but a servant. Salvation always comes quickly on the heels of true repentance. It is sorrowful yes, but it is a sorrow which leads to salvation. Self-hatred may not always be viewed through negative lenses; it may actually be a prerequisite to a positive change in one’s life, a sort of coming to oneself, or true repentance. Because it wasn’t until the prodigal was truly sorrowful that he saw clearly what a greedy and ingratitude lout he had always been. God help us not to run away from that kind of cleansing sorrow when he sends it our way.

Being thankful is pretty easy when something big has happened, like a sudden windfall. But being thankful in the smallest things of everyday life is rare. It is a secret fault all of us possess, and the sad news is that we hardly know we possess it. The great events are rare. But it is in the smallness of things that life really moves. Let us therefore not despise the day of small things. They build a habit, and a habit builds consistency, and consistency makes the flowers to bloom even in winter. It makes the music sound aloud even in prison. And consistency can make a Spafford to sing ‘It is well with my soul’ even in the midst of the heaviest grief. The redemption story of children of Israel from Egypt was not only about their character but ours as well. God performed clear miracles before their eyes, but they still went ahead to make a god of their own. Their ingratitude killed them, but it is probable they didn’t even see it that way. But of course the cross is the height of our ingratitude. We hanged Christ on it for his tireless effort to save us… But even after a clear demonstration of his resurrection power ‘Who hath believed our report?’

The chief effect of ‘secret faults’ like ingratitude, is that they slow us down in our spiritual progress. We may even recognize them, but we take them lightly because they are small. But the growth of weeds in a farm usually starts small, in one scattered patch or two, and if it is left unchecked one day the farmer will wake up to find his entire crop swallowed and lost to the weeds. And so too ‘secret faults’ have that potential to cause havoc if left unchecked. A holy life can soon get lost to the weeds of the world. The apostle Peter writing on godliness, virtue and divine nature says, ‘But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall’ (2Pet 1:9-10). And we shall never really know ourselves until we first know our God. ‘Search me, O God,’ cried the psalmist, ‘and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting’ (Psa 139:23-24). Because it is only then I can rest comfortably in the knowledge that ‘I am known’.

Why God’s Will is that we Should be Content with our Daily Bread

Give us this day our daily bread. Mat 6:11  

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 1Ti 6:6 

It is for our own happiness. There is only one way in which one can rejoice always and again rejoice. And that is by being content always in whatever circumstances. But we know that it is not easy. It can be very easy when one is rich, but it is not so when one is very poor. It is very easy when one is in love, but it is not so when one has been rejected. It is easy in summer. It is not so in winter.

But though it might not be humanly possible to be always content, yet the benefits of practicing that virtue are immense (and paradoxically) will lead to the greatest happiness in one’s life. For if one steals, one will be caught, and sent to jail, and that will be the beginning of a hard life. If one commits adultery, the end of it will always be sorrow and death. But to know that is easy. It is how to do which is the hardest part, ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do’ (Rom 7:18-19).  And that is the power of sin. It always wrecks life in the end. But Christ died so that the sting of sin might be removed once and for all. And it is only on that basis that one can fully grasp the meaning of Christian contentment. We celebrate it not because it has made life easy, but because of the person of Christ.

God might have cared only for the obedient Christian in this life, and to have left the sinner to perish in his sin. But he didn’t do that. He came after the one lost sheep. He left the ninety nine good ones in heaven to come and look for the only one which got lost, me. And it is that knowledge which makes us to be contented. It is that mysterious love which is beyond human comprehension and which makes us to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and to endure all things (1Co 13:7). It is because of him. His coming down on earth for only me, his suffering and dying on the cross that my sins might be forgiven… I deserved death, but he ransomed me from it, and he paid my whole debt by his own blood, for free! So what can separate me from that amazing love? Is it sickness, is it death? Is it poverty? No, nothing. Now I look at my past and count everything as dung (Php 3:8). And that is how I can be content under whatever circumstances. For what have I suffered which he didn’t? And what have I gained which he didn’t freely give? This is how the regenerate person perceives contentment.

But not so the unregenerate. He perceives that the whole meaning of life is to be happy at all costs. So he puts all his life and energy towards achieving that end. But then he has not reckoned with the power of sin. He wishes to operate like a machine, laying down good plans and knowing all the right buttons to press. But he is usually only as far from achieving happiness as when he first began. He thought, like Solomon, that it might be in the acquisition of things, but they have only made his life miserable. He thought it would be in the satisfying of the demands of the flesh, but he has only succeeded in tying his life in knots. And because he is only human and not a machine, his health crashes, and with that, his whole life. It loses meaning. And he begins to pine for death as an antidote. In fact death assumes the whole meaning of life, a sheer absurdity. His descent into nihilism happens without his knowledge: What does anything matter? Everything else which happens to him after that (assuming his God ‘died’ a long time with Nietzsche) only adds fuel to the absurdity of his life. And having become so alienated with himself how can such a person ever find contentment in this life?

But thanks be to God! He finds him (if he responds to his call), rescues him from himself, and gives him a heart of ‘flesh and not stone’. And it is from that ash that God makes a new creature. And it is only then for the first time in his life that he understands the meaning of life (Ecc 12:13-14). How on earth then can such a person ever fall again into the wild trap of discontentment in this life? He can’t. Because he has God, and having God, he has everything! O merciful God! Unharden our hearts that we might respond to you only as our measure of true contentment in this life!

God’s Will is that we Should Endure all things and Keep Faith up to the End

And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. Gen 42:36  

Life abhors a vacuum. We hate to stand still doing nothing. But we come alive when we are doing something, when we feel there is air and life around us, when we see people on the road, when there is a place to call home, when there is laughter outside and when there is work within. These things give meaning to life. But then something happens. And the rhythm of what we knew as life snaps.

The rhythm of the life of Jacob had broken down many times before. But God had always been there for him to mend the broken parts, but Jacob had forgotten. And upheavals make us do that. We forget. But David too had despaired several times in his pilgrimage. At one time he was so certain he was going to die at Saul’s hand. He forgot God had anointed him to be ruler over Israel. Briefly Elijah forgot Mt. Carmel as he screamed across the desert that Jezebel was about to kill him. John sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was really the one, or whether they should look for another. Where had their faith gone?

You had been certain once that you were doing the perfect will of God. But now doubts assuage you. Things have happened. The hearthstone has gone cold. And ‘all these things are against me’. Don’t be hasty to pass judgment upon yourself. Even more don’t be hasty to pass judgment on God. Wait until the water has calmed in the pond because it is only then that you can see the depth clearly. That was the error of Jacob in passing judgment upon himself. It was the error of David, and many other people who believed God.

Some have supposed this is their end. Few stop to think it might be the beginning of a new thing, and a perhaps a better life afterwards. The time comes when belief looks impossible. But at such times faith says believe more, and act like Abraham 'who against hope believed in hope'. May we never be counted with the ones who staggered at the promise of God through unbelief, but rather let us be ‘strong in faith, giving glory to God.’ Let us remain ‘fully persuaded’ that what he has promised, he is able also to perform (Rom 4:20-21).

Don’t crucify yourself. Don’t loathe yourself. You are human and it is why you are feeling like that. God understands. And he’s glorified when we run to him for help, because he gives it. He is a strong tower, the righteous run to him and they are safe. The Lord is my light and my salvation, who shall I be afraid of?

There is one who knows the end from the beginning, and the story of our own life is still developing. What God begins he finishes, and the Bible story lives as a testimony to this day. We are not alone. Hasn’t he said, ‘I shall not leave you comfortless’? Yes sometimes our eyes can be so cast down looking down at the waves… until we forget to look up at him. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.’ Step outside for a while tonight and just stare at the starlit blue sky. His voice is everywhere. Shut the silence for a while and just listen. ‘Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard’ (Psa 19:1-3). 

Please God don’t let our fears and our worries so seize us at this present time, until like Jacob, we fail to see our salvation coming! ‘And it came to pass’…what a heading for a testimony! So ‘[w]ho shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? …For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:35-39). And may we be able to believe that always, O God!

The Will of God is that we Should see Him in Everything, including in our Depressions

But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD. And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Jon 2:9-10 

One great but silent theme of the book of Jonah is the Sovereignty of God. He is not the God of Israel (or Jonah) alone but the God of the whole world. He knows the number of hairs on every one’s head and no sparrow can fall to the ground without his knowledge (Mat. 10:29-30). It may annoy but we are here at God’s pleasure and not at our own (Ps 115:3; Rev 4:11).  

Chapter two of the book of Jonah is very short. But it is reads like a depression manual. Jonah cried to God ‘out of the belly of hell’ – and God heard him. But Jonah understood where his ‘depression’ was coming from. And if we would be brutally honest with ourselves, most of us know where our depression is coming from. We may even know how we can get out of it. But we lack the courage.  

Jonah understood that it was his sin which had sent him to the deep. He also understood that it was only his God who could get him out, and that is why he ‘prayed unto’ him, ‘I will look again toward thy holy temple’. It is a lesson which Asaph had also learnt earlier in his heavy gloom: ‘For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning…When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end’ (Psa 73:14-17). And turning to God is how we always begin to get out of depression, ‘Salvation is of the LORD’. ‘And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land’ (Jon 2:9b-10).  

Thus the fish was a gift to Jonah from God. It saved him from drowning. Not all crises are meant to destroy us. For his saints, crises are meant to make us reflect, to purify us and to cleanse us. How you do you perceive the crisis you are in? One can view it as a curse from God and grow even more bitter (and help Satan in his evil). Or one can receive it as a gift from God to prevent them from drowning: ‘I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me’ (Psa 119:75). The ‘corrections’ of God are always righteous, and they are not designed to bring us evil. Thus the psalmist thanked his God: ‘At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments’ (Psa 119:62).  ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word’ (Psa 119:67). God give us the eyes to behold our sin, and God give us the courage to confess it.

Finally depression came to Job but he didn’t charge ‘God foolishly’. So sometimes even righteous people will have their ‘three days and three nights in the fish belly’. It happens, because no one can quite ‘know God to perfection’. Sometimes he hides himself and no one can ask him why. But in the end God makes something beautiful out of all his saints’ ashes. May yours too be something we shall read or talk about one day.

The Story of Jonah Revisited (A Testimony), And why our Lives will get Complicated when we Decide to Disobey the will of God

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Jon 1:1-4 

No, God is not complicated. But we are. And to the extent to which we make our lives complicated, to that extent will our God also seem complicated to us. Jonah might have made his life very easy once. But he disobeyed God. And his life got complicated.

And sin always does that. It complicates life.

Jonah had to make hasty travel arrangements. He had to raise his fare very fast, probably by disposing one of his possessions. He had to pack. He had to leave. So at the harbor he paid his fare. He got into the ship and the ship took off. But he didn’t complete his journey. Instead he raised a storm in the ship and in other peoples’ lives. So he chose to disembark in the middle of the ocean, and his money went to waste, and probably his luggage.

But even in his complications God had mercy upon him. He saved him from drowning, although he had to suffer the indignity of taking a ride in the belly of ‘a great fish’, and which also became his lodging for three days and three nights. And after all that trouble he still had to do God’s will – the very thing he was escaping from in the first place! It wasn’t God but Jonah who complicated his own life.

And perhaps if we are honest, we will admit that we knew, like Jonah, what God’s will was upon our lives right from the beginning – but we fled!

Knowing God’s will is a personal journey. It begins in childhood, for that is when we first detected the strong pull of wrong versus right, and of evil against good. From very early on I was very conscious of that. When I did something good my life shone like the sun, but when I did something wrong, suddenly the whole sky above me went dark. I understand now that was God speaking to me through my conscience, for he is ‘the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world’ (John 1:9). But the rebelliousness in me prevented me from becoming his son then (John 1:12).

So how did I get saved? How did I accept God? How did I know his will? I suffered a crisis. And in that crisis (a stroke at 37) and alone in a hospital bed I knew God. I understood then that that was really his will for me since I was a child. He wanted me to live my life led by him. And that is the whole point of our rebellion. I refused. But my life only got harder!

So I got found at last (Amazing Grace!). What did I learn? That God speaks to us from childhood. We know it but we deny it (Rom 1:18-20). But God does not give up. He follows us like he followed Jonah. That God allows crises in our lives because that is the only time we are ‘forced’ to hear him. My old life consisted in running away from him – like Jonah. Until I landed in that hospital ward, and in one long night I heard him. That hospital ward was Jonah’s great fish belly for me. I accepted God’s will. For Jonah, if it was not the storm, and the great fish belly, and if it was not for God not giving up on him, he should have been lost to the world. For me if it had not been for that stroke, I should never have been saved.

God is still speaking to us to know his will. God has never given up. His love cannot him allow him to. Even now millions are getting saved through this crisis, as God is silently conducting a revival while all the churches are closed. Millions will date this Corona pandemic as their turning point in life. Millions are being born again today without the benefit of the altar call. God made his will known to us, if we are honest to admit it, from childhood. But now in the storm, in the great fish belly or hospital ward, God is still making his will known today. One can come to him through the easy way, like the Ethiopian eunuch, or the hard way, like Jonah. Further disobedience is not worth it. It will only make life harder. But life will become very easy if we give up. O God open our eyes today, that we might see you!

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21/06/20

The Story of Jonah and the Meaning of God’s Will

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. Jon 1:2-3 

One can never quite run away from God’s will. But that is only one of the wonderful lessons in this fascinating story of one man’s will against that of God. Jonah is a complex character. And may this be an inspiration to all the people who are called ‘complex’ by other people – or who unflatteringly consider themselves as too complicated. May they know that God can still use them so they have no excuse!

Jonah’s ideals were shaped early by the writings of his religious leaders concerning the one true God – and the only God of the Israel nation. Jonah’s thinking was firmly rooted here. God could only be one thing and nothing else. And that was the genesis of Jonah’s complication.

God hated Israel’s enemies, and God fought for his people Israel. The Assyrians of Nineveh were such one enemies of Israel. They were cruel and bloodthirsty hounds. But now Jonah was reading ‘mischief’ in the character of God, in his desire to bring salvation to Israel’s chief enemies. Jonah, being fixed in his beliefs since childhood, decided to refuse to obey this of God’s latest proclamations. He decided to flee to Tarshih in a place he thought was in the furthest parts of the world. But Jonah had not reckoned for the humanistic side of God (yes God can be extremely humorous too). So God decides to follow Jonah to the furthest parts of the world (perhaps he had not read Deuteronomy 30:4 which says:  If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee). And from there it becomes like a battle of wits between Jonah and the God of Israel. Who will win? The answer is obvious of course. Jonah knows that but he is also determined to make his point! But in the end the will of God is done – as it always has. But even after he sees the results with his own eyes it doesn’t please Jonah. Instead it leaves him bitter than before…in fact so bitter he desires to die there and then – and he lets God know that! (Jonah 4:6-8).

In the end Jonah’s lesson is on dangers of ‘fixing’ God. It may be a dangerous thing sometimes to fix God in one locality, one thinking, one day, or one method. Another fascinating book full of complex characters I want to refer to is Job. Job’s friends were not only heavy intellectuals (as Job himself was), but they were also perilously fixed in one reading of God’s face. They knew God avenged wicked people (by taking away their wealth as in Job’s case, and he made the good guys very rich). It was the way God had dealt with his people in his writings in all generations. So Job was a hypocrite and that is why God was punishing him. But they were wrong. They had fixed God but God is never fixed. He does what pleases him. And so again God never ceases in his surprises, for in the end he reprimands Job’s friends while he preserves his mercy for Job. Truly God is no respecter of persons.

A third character who I consider complex is Peter. It is amazing that God picked him as a leader amongst all his disciples. Why didn’t God pick on a ‘safe’ character like Philip? But that is God, no one can fix him in one type of thinking, and he surprises us every day on that – as he surprised Peter in his new ‘will’ (Acts 10). So what is God saying in all these things? I believe it is that God can set aside his known ‘will’ at any one time and introduce a completely new way of thinking for us. Would we be ready to accept such a thing? Secondly, God is saying that sometimes it is through a vision that he makes his will known, or through a Spirit (Acts 10:19) – and not necessarily through what ‘the letter’ says (2Co 3:6). But either way God will and does make his will known at all times, whether it will please us or not. Sometimes he surprises us from our thinking, so it good to remember that. Nevertheless God will never deviate from his nature as he has founded it for us in his holy word. The moral law of God is still as valid for us today as it was in the beginning. God grant us the courage to accept that every day you are creating a new thing in our lives – and sometimes even when it goes against our core beliefs, or what is written down. Give us the perception which can only come from you, O God, to understand these things, for without faith we know that it impossible to please you O God.

DO YOU DESIRE TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD IN YOUR LIFE? THE TRUTH IS THAT IT SHOULDN’T BE A MATTER WHICH BRINGS SUCH DREAD IN OUR HEARTS!

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Rom 12:2 

Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Heb 13:21 

Yes, few subjects are as scary as the desire to know the will of God in one’s life. But the truth is that, when all things are considered, it shouldn’t. Because one, life is serious and it is never simple. It is only easy while we are still young and when we have to depend on others to make decisions on our behalf. And it is only after we have grown up and left the safe shelter of our parents that we discover just how rough the terrain called life is…when we entered school for the first time, when we met other children like us – we detected it in the bullying we received at some unpleasant kids, who made great fun of us, who laughed at us and called us very unpleasant names. We also detected it earlier when we became sick and we were taken to somebody strange called a doctor…and nurses who caused us great pain through injections! We detected it earlier too in some adults, probably our own parents, our relatives, our neighbours, our friends and our teachers. So from very early we have known that life isn’t easy, and never will.

That’s probably the way of God to make us reflect, think, and importantly (and perhaps the hardest), to decide. But some people paused – and they paused permanently from early on in their lives. They were unable to decide for themselves. So unconsciously they surrendered their lives to others to think for them, may be a guardian, parent, teacher but mostly friends. Very few of us have surrendered their troubles to God from early on. Yet he has been there since we were children waiting for us to ask him to show us the right way. Imagine the peace which we should have enjoyed from very early on if only we had known! How much money should we have saved, or how many troubles? So we plodded on sometimes in total darkness about what was the right thing to do – for we didn’t believe God in the first place. And therefore mistakes happened and they just went on happening in our lives until now.

But thanks be to God because he has never quite given up on us! He was there in the beginning and he is still there today, and he will be there tomorrow, and in eternity. He is there always waiting to hear someone answer his knock, even now. But why do we fear to be associated with God so much? What drives our dread? Is it something we have heard of him, or is it something we have experienced of him? Chiefly the main reason why we fear him is because we fear losing our independence. And we are born with a hard heart more given to rebelliousness than obedience. We detected this even as earlier as we were still children. We hated being told what to do, wear this, don’t wear that, comb that hair, go there, we didn’t even love the names we were given at birth, we changed them.

Sometimes we hated God simply because our parents drummed God down our throats since we were children. Their portrait of God wasn’t one to drum up love in our hearts. The God they drew up to us almost resembled a dictator. He was ruthless, eagerly waiting on the margins of our lives to just make one mistake, and then he pounced on us with bloodletting fury and hailstones. He wasn’t a God of mercy. He rejoiced over our failures. He magnified them until they became like an ogre in our lives. We grew up with that picture. In one day alone the word hell was dropped about ten times. That is the picture of God most have up to this day. But I am here to tell you that that picture is from hell and not from heaven! It is the devil!

But you can begin now to trust this God. It is not easy, after all the years of mistrust, but try him and see whether he is faithful or not. Don’t be afraid. Ask God for forgiveness. He does it so wonderfully beautiful! How ugly have your sins been like? What is the worst colour you can associate with them, black or red? God promises he will make your heart white as snow. He will take away the heaviness and leave your heart feeling as light as wool (Isaiah 1:18). You can believe that today and be free forever. And who knows whether that is not the will of God for you today? Oh God help our unbelief!

REALISM OR IDEALISM? FINALLY IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO THE ELUSIVE NATURE OF FREEDOM!

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Joh 8:36  

Freedom is a wonderful thing. It is not easy to give up when it has been acquired. But freedom is also slippery. It can get so fluid for example until one loses the sense of right or wrong – or until it has slipped into a form of very subtle bondage. The prodigal won his freedom once. But it was also his greatest ruin. Such are the complex nuances which constitute the meaning of freedom. The redemption of the children of Israel from Egypt may just be one of the nuances. The surface meaning is easy to infer. But the deeper undertones may easily pass undetected. Metaphorically it is an exercise that takes labour and hard days just to dig it up or experience it fully. It is not a fancied exercise at all, and it may even sound boring. ‘And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart’ (Jer 29:13).  ‘I intreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word’ (Psa 119:58).  

The prodigal’s freedom was cheaply acquired, and it deserted him just as suddenly. He had paid nothing for it, and he had no reference point or experience on how to make use of it before that. The value of hard work was lost on him. His life had never understood patience. He had just grown up in his father’s house where everything had been provided for him, including his inheritance. But that is not how God wants his people to earn their freedom! It might have been easy, and very easy indeed, to have just made his people cross over to the Promised Land from Egypt in one day. But picture what they would have lost, the whole experience of forty years! They should never have understood God’s faithfulness or power. They should never have learnt the expensive lesson of patience, of trusting God, of waiting, of the meaning of faith and of the invaluable lessons of pain and suffering. (The things God is teaching us through this Covid19 for example should probably serve us well for the next 100 years. There is almost a four hundred year period of relapse afterwards, a period of forgetting). They should’ve earned their freedom very cheaply and they should’ve lost it very shortly indeed. They should hardly have acquired the full taste of it in their mouths before it should’ve evaporated. Their children should never have had a reference point, no songs to remember by, no writings to refer to, no lives to draw strength from and no witnesses! In short they should’ve gained nothing, no history, no identity and no inheritance! And that is not the way of love. It’s sheer cruelty instead. Indeed they should’ve gone back to Egypt (and slavery) the following day! And it is the same way God behaved towards Adam. Had he given him absolute freedom without any rules Adam (and us) should’ve remained at one stage of ‘development’ all his life. And that is slavery of the worst kind! And certainly it is not the way God acts with those he loves. He cares for the end results. That is why he dwells too long on the lessons.

And so is the freedom which God gives. It is not a one day event but an eternal one. Lies have a very short shelf life, and one always pays dearly in the end for all the gifts from the devil. That was the lesson of the prodigal. For it wasn’t long before ‘he began to be in want’, and the devil’s trick always ends like that – it is usually one unending trip of wants! ‘Sir,’ cried the woman, ‘[G]ive me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw!’ The devil’s tales always begin very sweetly, very swiftly, and very big. It is hard to resist the freedom he lays out initially, very hard in fact, that few have successfully resisted him! You may be in trenches right now but hold out for a while. Don’t give place for a sweet tale just now! What you aim for is too precious to settle for anything so cheap! God’s way may be long but in the end he delivers what he promised. He doesn’t deny the desert place. He doesn’t deny the sun and the thirst and the long trek. But God never departs from his promises from the beginning up to the end. His promises are dearly purchased, that is why he wouldn’t settle for cheap.

So how does true freedom resemble like? True freedom may involve rejecting what at first seems like true freedom. True freedom may sometimes involve emptying one’s life completely of what one may have accumulated for years. Sometimes true freedom may only begin to become apparent once the room has been reduced to its barest minimum – until one even begins to suspect he is a pauper! True freedom takes great courage. Because it may involve rejecting a well-trodden path for a completely new one! And the sudden plunging into it may actually make the whole difference! So what sort of freedom would you rather have?

God is wonderful. He even gives us the freedom to reject his freedom! Who else can give a person the opportunity to reason with him like that – sometimes almost to the degree of becoming a nuisance to him - and yet he doesn’t give up! For me, that is the kind of person I wish to serve for the rest of my life! God make us hungry again for this amazing freedom and which you so expensively purchased by your own blood at Calvary. Fix our eyes permanently only on the final prize O God! - and not on our vain expediencies of realism and very short lived sparks of idealism.