God, the Loving and Faithful Destroyer

God uses many methods to draw us to Him, as many methods as there are people. He is the infinite God, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. We can look back over our lives and see His Spirit at work in the questions He put in our minds and caused us to search for answers to, finding Him as the final answer. We can see His hand at work in the circumstances we faced and the people we had contact with who influenced us one way or the other, drawing us or repelling us, toward the Lord.

In so many cases, our experience with God involved Him dealing with those things which were our mainstays. Like Jacob when he wrestled with the angel, it may have been a personal skill, strength, or ability of ours that we were counting on, basing our life's goals and purposes on, and all our plans came crashing down when He touched that "hip socket" and the only thing left that we could do was hold on and not let go of God.

Genesis 32
v.25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
v.26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Perhaps like the Pharaoh that God sent Moses and Aaron to, the power and strength of numbers and resources became the bulwark of our defense. However many there may have been, God was able, and through His patient and enduring love, willing to devour and consume and destroy each and every single one, in ways that could not be mistaken for happenstance, so that we could be free enough of those encumbrances to reach out to Him for the aid and strength to go on.

Exodus 9:20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside.

It may have been like Saul of Tarsus in his zealous, though misguided, religious fervor of trying to do God's work. His entire upbringing had been one of training and study of the things of God, never once swerving from the focused imperative of being righteous according to the Law of Moses and in the sight of man. Every step he took, every action he made, every plan he followed had the "chapter and verse" to back it up. Blessedly, the mercy of God was extended because of Saul's learned ignorance, and the light of God shown in on the plans he had made, showing them for what they were, having nothing to do with God Himself and paling to insignificance before the vision of God's own plan for the newly-renamed Paul, the apostle.

Acts 9
v.3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
v.4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
v.5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.

Blessed are the poor, the weak, the incapable, the child-like, for they are able to receive God on His own terms without the struggles faced by the intelligent, the knowledgeable, the skilled, the sophisticated, the wealthy. May we see with God's eyes the special love He holds for those who accept Him at His word without doubting, without questioning, without trying to change the subject.

Matthew 19
v.14 But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."
v.23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Gracious and loving Father, thank You that You have made a way for us where there was no way. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus, who willingly gave Himself for our sins and opened the door for us to enter into the joys of the fellowship of Heaven. Thank You, Lord, for those times when we can be of service to the truly honored ones of Your kingdom, the ones not deformed by doubt, not crippled with the world's reasoning, not disabled by wealth, the ones who have a beauty of heart and pureness of spirit unknown and unseen to all but those You have favored with the opportunity to serve. Thank You for giving us Your Spirit to overcome our spiritual handicaps and blindness.

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