Look up – through the mess – and seek Him… Oct 9, 2017
God is so awesome! Once again, He gave me a new poem to share at Simonka Place on Friday evening. I finalized and printed it up only an hour before nervously reading it during chapel time at the women’s and children’s shelter. My new nickname could be “The 11th Hour Poet”! I’d been told that the message theme would be “justifying our actions”, but I waited until Friday afternoon to begin looking through my works for a poem to share. Nothing quite fit, so immediately I prayed, “Okay, Lord, do You have something special I can write for the ladies?” With a pencil and notebook at the ready, this is what He inspired me to write:
“Loopholes”
Lord, I get so tangled in myself
– every loophole becomes a noose,
cutting me off from Your truth,
trying to justify with an excuse.
Yet there’s no excuse I can make
that You cannot see right through;
Any loophole I identify
unravels in light of You.
Your Word cuts to the heart,
exposing the enemy’s lies;
The truth behind every “reason”,
each sidestep and disguise.
So in humble awe, I surrender
my faulty wisdom for Your grace.
Laying down my foolish pride
– running into Your embrace.
For You gaze right through me
even as You see me through;
I’m justified only by grace,
through faith, not what I do.
Thank You, Lord, for loving me
and for Your patience when I stumble.
May all the loopholes in my life
remain unraveled as I stay humble.
11-10-17
©Ladeena Ashley
To some degree or another, we all rationalize our actions. We are made in God’s image, so among other things, we have intellect, emotions, and a will, but because we also live in a fallen world, our clever minds can easily get us into trouble. I myself tend to over-think things or selfishly want my own way, more often than I’d like to admit. There are several loopholes or spiritual gray areas we’ve all used to justify our actions.
For many, one struggle is telling white lies. It seems like the most loving thing to do, but it actually isn’t loving at all. A white lie is still a lie. Yet there are gentle ways to tell the truth. I’m generally honest to a fault, so the challenge for me is to avoid stepping on toes through my matter-of-fact comments.
Some folks act as if they can hide things from God, or attempt to somehow outsmart Him. Those notions have never made sense to me. It’s silly to think that we can convince God that He’s wrong by using the seemingly sound reasoning and logic of the world. It is also dangerously foolish to cherry pick doctrine to serve our selfish purposes. The enemy delights in twisting the truth. By picking and choosing what we believe or turning it to justify our agenda, we’re playing right into his hand.
God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are infinitely higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). We can’t even begin to comprehend the full measure of His wisdom, or fathom the depths of His understanding (Isaiah 40:28). Basically, God is God, and we are not!
That being said, the Lord actually invites us to reason together with Him (Isaiah 1:18). He welcomes dialogue. Yell, scream or even shake your fist at God. He can take it. Just know that no matter your argument, He will win. Yet when you lose, you win, for in surrendering yourself, you gain His wisdom and a deeper understanding of His will and workings.
Once again, the crux of the problem is trust in self versus trust in God. The more you trust in His perfect will and infinite love for you, the wisest (though not the easiest) choice becomes clear: to pray and seek His will ahead of your own. The God of the universe has your best interests at heart and has the unlimited resources to accomplish great things, even out of our knotted-up messes.
So with humble hearts, let us seek the perfect wisdom He offers freely (James 1:5), daily committing to follow Him with no pretense and no agenda except to do our best, by His grace.
May all of our clever loopholes be replaced with threads of joyful obedience, in light of His goodness, wisdom and love!
Faith Notes
Here’s one of my favorite songs that fits the theme of this post:
What You Want – Tenth Avenue North
Wisdom of the Word
“For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’.” 1 Corinthians 3:19
“Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!” Isaiah 5:21
Blessings to you, this day and always!
©Ladeena Ashley
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