Restoration is Up to Us
His Word says that He will make the crooked places straight. (Isaiah 42:16) Although referring to the Israelites returning to their land after being in exile, and perhaps meaning that He would make the roads smooth, by removing the obstacles, today He is making reference to the places in us that He will make straight. With promises like this, which involves the work He is doing in us, requires our consent and participation, after He illuminates our "crooked places," by His Holy Spirit.
Say, for instance, that God shows you that you are enabling someone else to continue doing things that are destructive to them. You might be making excuses for them in your mind because for some reason, you enjoy rescuing them, and the feeling you get from that. Subconsciously, you may think you are loving them, but this feeling could be you stroking your own ego, or the goodness you think you are. It may be, however, that you simply are afraid that they might not love you anymore if you don't succumb to their wishes, or demands.
The Holy Spirit has already revealed these things to you, if you will but hear, and so now, you have a decision to make. Do you continue to help the one you say you love, by helping them get deeper and deeper into the darkness because you want to feel good or are afraid, or do you repent, and ask for the help of the Holy Spirit's power to help you quit this destructive behavior?
If you do the latter, God will surely restore you. When the time comes for the cycle to repeat itself (and it will) you will find yourself responding in a different way, and experience the "strength of the Lord" to say, "no." It may be that God will heal a wound in you that you didn't even know was there, and it was because of that, that you couldn't "walk straight,"; a big rock was in your path. Or it could simply be that you wanted to handle things your own way, and not God's way, and so you did, and you need to humble yourself and ask for His forgiveness.
But, if you choose to either ignore what He has made known to you, and continue on your same path, He will not make this crooked place straight. It really is all up to us. What is more harmful in making this decision, is that your heart becomes hard to His voice and Will, and we can be sure that there will be no changes made in us, or in our relationships. Overtime, if we continue to blaze our own trails, that action too, will lead to our destruction.
It is when our will agrees with His, and we repent and ask for His help, after He shows us something, that true restoration can happen. Only then.
Say, for instance, that God shows you that you are enabling someone else to continue doing things that are destructive to them. You might be making excuses for them in your mind because for some reason, you enjoy rescuing them, and the feeling you get from that. Subconsciously, you may think you are loving them, but this feeling could be you stroking your own ego, or the goodness you think you are. It may be, however, that you simply are afraid that they might not love you anymore if you don't succumb to their wishes, or demands.
The Holy Spirit has already revealed these things to you, if you will but hear, and so now, you have a decision to make. Do you continue to help the one you say you love, by helping them get deeper and deeper into the darkness because you want to feel good or are afraid, or do you repent, and ask for the help of the Holy Spirit's power to help you quit this destructive behavior?
If you do the latter, God will surely restore you. When the time comes for the cycle to repeat itself (and it will) you will find yourself responding in a different way, and experience the "strength of the Lord" to say, "no." It may be that God will heal a wound in you that you didn't even know was there, and it was because of that, that you couldn't "walk straight,"; a big rock was in your path. Or it could simply be that you wanted to handle things your own way, and not God's way, and so you did, and you need to humble yourself and ask for His forgiveness.
But, if you choose to either ignore what He has made known to you, and continue on your same path, He will not make this crooked place straight. It really is all up to us. What is more harmful in making this decision, is that your heart becomes hard to His voice and Will, and we can be sure that there will be no changes made in us, or in our relationships. Overtime, if we continue to blaze our own trails, that action too, will lead to our destruction.
It is when our will agrees with His, and we repent and ask for His help, after He shows us something, that true restoration can happen. Only then.
posted by Patti Blount @ 6:44 AM
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