Daily Lesson for March 25, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 81:

"11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel would not submit to me.

12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,

to follow their own counsels."

I have a friend who is the father of a teenage boy. The other day we were talking about parenting and to what degree we need to give our kids freedom to make their own choices - even the wrong choices. Then he used a metaphor that I thought was pretty good. He said that at this point in life, "I am no longer a manager. I am now primarily a consultant."

Psalm 81 tells us basically the same thing about God. It starts off by talking about how God intervened in Egypt to rescue the Israelites from the yoke of Pharaoh, and how God brought them into the wilderness to be tested by hunger and by thirst so they would learn obedience. Then God brought them into the Promised Land.

But then God got out of the management business. He let go; and He let the people make their own choices and go their own way - even though the choices were not always good and more often than not the way was wrong. Nevertheless, God was not interested in micro managing. It was for the sake of freedom that God set the Israelites free; and once they were free God decided that they and He would have to live with the consequences of that freedom.

So how about you? What are you doing with your freedom? Is your life working the way you are living it? If it's not working and you're hoping management might step in and change a bunch of things to make it better don't count on it. If your looking for a manager so you can complain then you're pretty much out of luck also. The life you are living now really can't be blamed on anyone beside you; and if changes are going to be made then you have to decide to make them. God is not going to do anything for you that you can't do for yourself - that's just part of the whole freedom deal. As we have often heard, with freedom comes responsibility.

This is a hard truth, but one we must all come to terms with. Most of us grew up with a juvenile image of a slot machine God - a God of whom you asked and He delivered. We have to grow out of that image, we have to learn that God is not the great slot machine, fixer, or rescuer. God is not even a great miracle worker - at least not when anything less than a miracle will do and should be done. What God is is a faithful friend, companion, and voice of wisdom, and encourager, and empowerer, who gently calls us back into the right way when we go astray and gives us the courage and ability to come back under our own power. But He will not, He cannot, force us not to go astray, nor will He force us to come back if without our consent. That would defeat the whole purpose of our freedom.

God stopped being a manager in our lives a long time ago; but He is still available for consultation whenever we might need Him, which is pretty much every day - and He doesn't charge a thing.