His Ways Are Not My Ways
Psalm 1 TPT
"What delight comes to the one who follows God's ways! he won't walk in step with the wicked, nor share the sinner's way, nor be found sitting in the scorner's seat. His pleasure and passion is remaining true to the Word of "I Am," meditating day and night in the true revelation of light. He will be standing firm like a flourishing tree planted by God's design, deeply rooted by the brook of bliss, bearing fruit in every season of his life. He is never dry, never fainting, ever blessed, ever prosperous. But how different are the wicked. All they are is dust in the wind--driven away to destruction! The wicked will not endure the day of judgement, for God will not defend them. Nothing they do will succeed or endure for long, for they have no part with those who walk in truth. But how different it is for the righteous! The Lord embraces their paths as they move forward while the way of the wicked leads only to doom."
2020 is the year I determined to work on getting as healthy as I could body, soul, spirit. It is also the year an unexpected season of Sabbath kept me home for a couple of months. As a result, this is the year I have been led deeper in my relationship with God. While reading through several books on relationships and emotional health I have come face to face with some unproductive emotional habits. Honestly, more than once I have taken a good hard look at my way of processing emotionally difficult situations and thought "What a mess!" Seriously, what an emotional mess!
Praise Be to God He went through those books with me! When the mess started getting to me, I closed the books and picked up THE BOOK, the Bible. The Bible is truth, and truth always changes fact. The facts of my messy emotional processing needed the truth of God's Word to come in and put things in order. I needed the way I previously handled emotional difficulties tidied up and put to rights. And THAT is exactly what God is doing. He is putting things to rights in my body, soul, and spirit.
As I talk to Him about various habits I have/had, sometimes I ask Him if it really matters. Like, is this really sin or is it just not an ideal way of dealing with things? Know how He answers me? With scripture. Verse after verse come to mind that perfectly answer every question. It has been such a restful fulfilling experience to be taught by God Holy Spirit. One of the portions of scripture that has come to mind most is from Isaiah 55:8,9 -
"For my thoughts about mercy are not like your thoughts, and my ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so my ways and my thoughts are higher than yours."
Because His ways and thoughts are different and higher I have been shown much mercy, mercy I did not deserve. The thing is, because I have been given mercy by God, I am to now give the same depth of mercy to others, no matter what, not by works, just like God gave it to me. And I used to think that was easier said than done. Let's be real, sometimes people just flat out do not deserve anything from us, definitely not mercy. But reality is I didn't deserve mercy from God, and He gave it to me anyway. Not only am I to be an imitator of Him, but if the Creator God of the Universe has forgiven me, who am I to refuse to forgive and lavish mercy on others?
This really, truly is NOT about them or me. It is ALL about Him, about God, and He DOES deserve my obedience. So, here we go! I get to extend undeserved mercy and forgiveness to others just as God has to me. The amazing thing about this is: it hasn't been difficult AT ALL!!! I have been SO surprised! It is as if my entire being has been waiting for me to line up with the truth of God's Word and live life His way. I have experienced what I can only describe as internal relief with every decision to do the hard thing, make the difficult call, and lay myself aside in order to obey Him. I thought letting go of some of my woundings and seemingly justifiable hurt feelings would be extremely difficult requiring perhaps years of making deliberate hard choices, but I was wrong.
Once I made the initial decision to obey God completely, no matter how much it hurt, the hurts no longer hurt. It was as if the goodness of God was so powerful the hurts couldn't compare. It felt as if I had unlocked doors of goodness and the goodness of God came rushing out to minister grace and healing to my mind, will, and emotions. God's goodness was so great that I began to suspicion the hard things were never really as hard as they seemed and that they never really did matter as much as I thought they did. I also began to see differently than I had before. I am able to understand things my hurts had been hiding. It feels like I have done some growing up and maturing in the way I think, see, and hear.
This is my personal experience. I don't know what seeking God and choosing to obey Him completely, in all things, will look like for everyone else. Perhaps, for some, there will be years of deliberately choosing God over self. All I know is I wish I had been brave and gotten down to the nitty gritty of complete and total Godly health when I was younger. However, there really wasn't a lot of information available about being healthy in our body, soul, and spirit when I was younger. So, instead of being regretful, I am choosing to be grateful.
Not only grateful, but full of encouragement for others who long to walk in complete and total health. It's time for Christ's Bride to be entirely healthy and whole. There is a world full of hurting people who need living examples of what God's wholeness looks like. Forgiving the unforgivable and loving the unlovely is a deliberate decision every person has to make for themselves. If you are wanting to be free from the pain and anger, please listen to me. God loves you. You may not understand His love because it is so much greater than your human understanding, but he loves you. Forgiving your enemies doesn't mean what they did to you is okay. God doesn't think it is okay either. It simply means that God's love for you is greater than whatever evil they have committed against you, and that you want God's love more than you want your "right" to be hurt and/or angry. Your love for Him is greater than your hurt from others.
When we have been very very wounded and/or hurt, sometimes we don't want to forgive our enemies it's true, but sometimes, that isn't the real heart issue. Sometimes what really bugs us is that we don't want those who have hurt us and the ones we love to be forgiven by God. It feels as if God Himself has mistreated us by forgiving and loving them, as if He let them "get by with" whatever nasty thing(s) they have done throughout their life, as if He chose sides and it wasn't ours.
The real issue may not be with us forgiving our enemies but with us believing God loves us when He forgives our enemy. How could He love me and forgive my abuser? Right? If God really loves me He will make that so and so suffer. Right? If God cares about me like everyone says He cares He will make them pay. Won't He? These are legitimate questions of the struggle, questions only God Himself can answer. Questions that may be answered with "My thoughts about mercy are not like your thoughts, and my ways are different from yours ... my ways and my thoughts are higher than yours."
If we are really being honest, we may want those who hurt us to receive their "just desserts" even though we ourselves were graciously spared. We WANT God to avenge us!!! Vengeance is His. He will repay. Right? Isn't that what He says? Our hurts may have become more important to us than God's forgiveness and grace. This may be where we come face to face with the truth of God and our thoughts not being His. This may be that pivotal moment when we decide once and for all whether we will or will not live for Him and love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We may be at the place where we decide with finality whether or not we will honestly, truly love our neighbor as our self, whether they deserve it or not.
The decision that opens the doors of God's goodness thus allowing His wholeness to permeate our entire beings may not be whether or not we will let go of offenses and woundings and forgive others, but whether we will forgive God for allowing those abuses to happen and/or for not making the one(s) who did them pay. The questions we find ourselves answering may be "Am I going to believe God is good, no matter what? Will I trust in His goodness even if I can't see and/or feel it? or Am I going to believe what I see, hear, and feel?" The choice is mine. The choice is yours. What will our choice be?
These are questions and decisions found on the way to wholeness of body, soul, spirit. They are the sort of things that require getting down and siting in the messes hiding in the closets of our mind, will, and emotions. We get to decide whether or not we are inviting God into our mess. Will we really choose Jesus? Or will we keep trying to limp along in our own strength living by our own understanding? Will we choose to believe God completely? Or will we continue to pick and choose to stand on and believe those things that make us feel good and promise us pleasure?
Events taking place around the world give clear indication that it's decision time. The Kingdom of God is on the move. The armies of heaven are assembling. We have been given armor and a sword. Just like Joshua in the Bible asked the children of Israel to choose whom they were going to serve, so today we are facing that same choice. I pray you join me in answering with the words of Joshua "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."