Monday, August 5, 2013

The Price of Idleness

"And they said, 'If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.' But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, 'Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here?' " Numbers 32:5-6 ESV

Does love let me sit idle? It's a question I think about often. God has blessed me and other could have what I have but I could spend to much time enjoying my blessings when really in God's eyes there is warfare happening that I need to enter into.

"And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. ... And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. ... And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. ... And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other." Genesis 13:1, 5, 7-8, 10-11 KJV

We know what happened to Lot right? He ended up in trouble... more trouble than Abraham could bail him out of this time. Sodom was slated for destruction... but it looked good to Lot at a time of strife. Lot was looking for what was a good deal for him and his family and basically said, 'Let Abraham go to war without me. I'll choose what is good for me and my immediate family.'

This is just my meditation. Where is loyalty in my life? Maybe relationship are worth fighting for? It's not works and it's all grace... but perhaps it's good to step back in the heat of the moment and say, 'What is the value here?' because looking out for number one in the situation may seem good in the short term... but is it in the long view? Is it God's mind.

Don't get me wrong. Christ ascended into Heaven after His Resurrection and left us and the World behind in a bodily sense. In that way He moved on but at the same time He never left us or forsook us. He didn't leave for greener pastures. He didn't exit the battle. He took on a new role in a new phase of His life and ministry.

I went to a face-to-face service for a woman this last weekend. She never put anyone in here rear view mirror. She had a prayer journal and it just got longer and longer even though she moved to different cities to live near different relatives in the last two decades of her life. Here relationship continued in prayer even if they were separated by distance.

That moves me. I want that. I don't want strife but I don't want ease either. I'll have ease in good season and when this 'corruptable puts on incorruptable' I will be able to handle that liberty without getting myself in trouble by 'lifting up my eyes' in the wrong direction.

I think God gave us prayer and these relationships that at time rub us, at times, in the wrong way to preserve our lives. We may think we do others or God a service by praying for them or remaining connected when really it is God's provision to keep us grounded.

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