13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say: What have we spoken against thee?14 Ye have asaid: It is bvain to serve God, and what doth it profit that we have kept his cordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?
I was writing an email to my best friend the other day; she is having a bit of a hard time, so I was trying to cheer her up. This is what I wrote (sorry about quoting myself, but then I'll comment):
I love that scripture in Malachi, partly because of how it ends:
I particularly love the part about how the Lord hearkened and heard. I also love how it says that he will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Believing that this applies to me does not mean that I should feel a right to be cocky, arrogant, prideful, etc; it means that when the chips are down and it looks like the bad guys are going to win, I am actually speaking against God when I choose to despair.
(But Cornelia, what do you mean by the bad guys? Do you lead a secret life as a superhero that we didn't know about? No, in fact, I do not. However, doesn't it just seem sometimes like mean people end up with better things in life? Not that you should hate the people themselves, but REALLY there comes a time when love or no love, sometimes a person is just mean. However. I remind myself that I am nice not for external rewards, but because I like to be. I am a Holy-Ghost-Led-Utilitarian, and I believe that God is an Eternal-Perspective-Utilitarian, but that is another explanation for another day.)
P.S. I am older than I look, but I am still pretty young. Notwithstanding my relative youth, I strongly affirm that in my short life, I have still seen multiple occasions when persons who have done wickedly have gotten their just rewards. Again, this is no occassion for feeling holier-than-thou, but when someone has done something unkind to me and I feel the need for vengance, I can take a deep breath and think: God did a very good job of giving that last person their just reward. In fact, He did such a good job that I am now feeling sorry for that person and feel a need to pray that their life will go better. I wouldn't trade places with that person. Speaking of which, Dear God, please, if there is anything I forgot to repent of, please help me do so now, please forgive me, because I would rather repent now than suffer later.
And that is what I often think.
Did God raise up Moses, save him as a baby, send him to the desert to learn from his father in law, send him back to Egypt, do gabillions of miracles, get the Children of Israel out, lead them to the Red Sea, put a pillar of fire between them and the armies of Pharoah, and then say, "Oh, well. There's a body of water between my people and safety. I guess I'll just have to give up now." I submit to you that God may be dumb, but he isn't that stupid. He has not brought you this far in your life with the intention of letting you fail. Suffer a little, worry a little, yes, probably; but complete and utter failure is not in the plan.I was thinking about that "God may be dumb, but he isn't that stupid," and wondering if it wasn't a little strong, but then I thought: isn't that what we do when we doubt Him like that? When we forget the miracles He has done, and assume that there is no way He can help us again? That he doesn't WANT to help us? That we are somehow unworthy of help?
I love that scripture in Malachi, partly because of how it ends:
16 Then they that feared the Lord aspake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard; and a book of bremembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.18 Then shall ye return and adiscern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
(But Cornelia, what do you mean by the bad guys? Do you lead a secret life as a superhero that we didn't know about? No, in fact, I do not. However, doesn't it just seem sometimes like mean people end up with better things in life? Not that you should hate the people themselves, but REALLY there comes a time when love or no love, sometimes a person is just mean. However. I remind myself that I am nice not for external rewards, but because I like to be. I am a Holy-Ghost-Led-Utilitarian, and I believe that God is an Eternal-Perspective-Utilitarian, but that is another explanation for another day.)
P.S. I am older than I look, but I am still pretty young. Notwithstanding my relative youth, I strongly affirm that in my short life, I have still seen multiple occasions when persons who have done wickedly have gotten their just rewards. Again, this is no occassion for feeling holier-than-thou, but when someone has done something unkind to me and I feel the need for vengance, I can take a deep breath and think: God did a very good job of giving that last person their just reward. In fact, He did such a good job that I am now feeling sorry for that person and feel a need to pray that their life will go better. I wouldn't trade places with that person. Speaking of which, Dear God, please, if there is anything I forgot to repent of, please help me do so now, please forgive me, because I would rather repent now than suffer later.
And that is what I often think.
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